The Long Game
by inwardtransience
Summary: Britain has been at peace for nearly a century — protected from the devastation of Grindelwald's war, free of conflict of their own. Charissa Potter, raised surrounded by family and friends more numerous than she can count, never really expected this to change. But hidden forces, it seems, have been playing a long game. ON INDEFINITE HIATUS.
1. July 31st, 1991

_So this is a thing I wrote._

 _One of the more important things to keep in mind about this nonsense is that one very critical thing is different: there never was a Lord Voldemort. Merope Gaunt did have a son, yes, but the situation is...different, to say the least. His name is even different. Lord Voldemort never having been a thing makes a lot of other things different by necessity, so there's that._

 _I made a lot of changes to canon worldbuilding details. Some of them are inspired or borrowed outright from other fics on this site — brownie points if you name which ones. Oh, and I try to use British orthography and such as well as I can for funsies, but I am so very, very American, so I'll probably slip._

 _Around the fourth act, things are going to get...I believe the phrase is "completely and totally bonkers." You've been forewarned._

 _I'm not putting the pairing for the romance plot in the summary like so many people do. In fact, I will never do that, for any fic ever._

 _Hope you have fun,_

 _~Wings_

* * *

For a few drowsy seconds, Charissa Potter had absolutely no idea why she was awake. But she had the distinct feeling something had woken her up.

Maybe because her fringe was fluttering against her forehead. This didn't make any sense — why would her hair be doing that? She frowned in confusion, her sleepiness powerful enough the expression would hardly be visible from the outside.

After a few more moments, she figured it out. Someone was softly blowing on her face.

Well, that could only be one person.

With a groan, Charissa waved a clumsy arm in front of her, where she knew her cousin Dora must be. Her hand didn't hit anything, but the blowing did stop. Followed almost immediately by very familiar frantic giggling. 'Go away,' she moaned.

In a light, sweet voice, her cousin said, 'Did I interrupt your beauty sleep, young Miss Potter?' The voice didn't sound quite right, the timbre slightly unfamiliar, but from the cadence Charissa was still positive it was Dora. Dora didn't exactly look or sound consistent anyway.

She knew she was being teased. At the moment she didn't care. 'Yes.'

'Too bad. You slept in already. We came early, but other people are going to start showing up soon.'

Right. Charissa had almost forgotten. Today was her birthday. Like usual, there would be a big party with a bunch of family and friends. She wasn't sure if she should feel excited or not. Usually a birthday was something to be excited about, yes, and she wasn't so atypical of a ten year old — er, eleven year old — that she was unaffected by that giddiness. But she had things to be a bit reticent about. The guest list was enormous, for one thing, and she didn't really like being stuck in the middle of so many people so much. It didn't help that half of the guest list really didn't get along with the other half.

See, it all came down to two of the Noble Houses — House Black and House Longbottom. The two families were both extremely old, extremely wealthy, extremely famous, and had an extremely long history of extreme dislike. House Black was a very conservative family, with a rather bad reputation for dabbling in dark magic. The House had once been numerous, but had gradually shrunk through the years, until it was perfectly feasible for every single person legally a member of the House to show up at one place for her birthday — her great aunt Cassiopeia (the current Lady Black), her great aunt Druella, her aunt Bella, her aunt Andi and cousin Dora, and her uncles Sirius and Regulus. She was pretty sure that was all of them, or at least all the ones who would actually turn up. Her aunt Narcissa had been born a Black — Aunt Bella and Aunt Andi's sister — but she was a Malfoy now, and she usually didn't come anyway. Her husband _hated_ the Longbottoms, so he refused to come to gatherings for this side of the family, but sometimes she'd show up with her son Draco, though not very often.

It used to confuse Charissa growing up, that Aunt Andi and Dora were part of House Black even though their last name was Tonks. It made sense to her now, though — Aunt Andi's husband Uncle Ted wasn't a member of a Noble House, and the House didn't technically consider them married at all, so she'd stayed a Black, passing it on to Dora. Though apparently the Lord Black at the time had had a fit about it.

And then there was House Longbottom. Despite being just as rich and pureblooded as the Blacks, the Longbottoms had been the most stridently progressive and reformist house in the Wizengamot since quite nearly its creation. Which, of course, meant they had a long history of very public disputes with the Blacks. There would be plenty of Longbottoms showing up, too — Augusta (the current Lady Longbottom), Algernon, Enid, her uncle Frank and aunt Alice and cousins Neville and Gwyneira (they weren't really that closely related, but Charissa had always called them that anyway), Callidora, Cygnus and a number of his children and grandchildren (who showed up changed event to event). The Longbottoms were coming because the nearly extinct House Potter, though a Noble House on their own, had actually started as a cadet branch of the Longbottoms, so a lot of people considered them to be practically Longbottoms themselves. Though it did help that Mum and Aunt Alice had been attached at the hip since their school days.

So, there would be quite a lot of people, more people than she was comfortable being around for any span of time. And the Houses had a long, long history of not being very nice to each other. And a few bonus details made it extra awkward. Callidora Longbottom had been born Callidora Black — she was Lady Black's first cousin. The marriage had been _very_ controversial when it'd first happened however long ago that was, and some of the older people in both Houses were still a little sore about it. Charissa's grandmother Dorea had also been born a Black, Lady Black's sister. That marriage was, if anything, even less popular. Must have been over fifty years now, and Grandma and Lady Black could still hardly talk to each other. Charissa herself had been named after a Black, Callidora's little sister, which also annoyed various people for reasons she didn't really understand. Add in the Weasley family (themselves descended from yet another unpopular Black marriage), Dad and Uncle Sirius's friends Uncle Remus (who was a werewolf) and Uncle Peter (whose longstanding illicit relationship with Uncle Sirius was kind of an open secret), Mum and Uncle Ted (who were both muggleborns), and Charissa would honestly be surprised if they didn't all end up cursing each other at some point.

Maybe she would find a way to sneak away, hide in her room, run off with Neville. Preferably as early as possible.

Oh, no, she'd gone on another genealogy rant in her head again. She'd been doing that a lot since Grandma had started tutoring her in the history of the family about a year ago. She just did it without thinking, if she was sleepy or distracted and kicked onto that particular train of thought by one thing or another. It was really quite—

Charissa let out a choking sigh, her lungs violently emptied, as something big and heavy fell on top of her stomach. Before she could collect herself, all light-headed from the pain and the breathlessness, she immediately started feeling confused again, because the thing on top of her was rather soft, and seemed to be moving, twisting a little, bouncing up and down. 'Get up!' came Dora's slightly unfamiliar voice. 'Get up, get up, get up!'

Oh. Dora had just gone ahead and jumped on top of her. She really shouldn't be surprised. 'Ow, Dora!' Charissa pushed herself up — or at least as much as she could with Dora on top of her, which wasn't very far. She shoved at the older girl with both hands, trying to dislodge the vortex of limitless energy and ceaseless giggles. While she was at it, she opened her eyes to see Dora didn't look at all like herself — tall and thin, the angular face of a complete stranger, short hair a vibrant purple — but then she never really looked like herself. To be completely honest, Charissa wasn't entirely sure what Dora was _supposed_ to look like anymore. 'That hurt!'

'Get up, then!' Dora wiggled around, reorienting herself on top of Charissa, which would have been uncomfortable _without_ the elbow she got in her shoulder. Eventually, Dora was settled, straddling Charissa's legs, hands on her shoulders. Dora was an exceptionally physical person, which she knew made a lot of people uncomfortable, but she was mostly used to it by now. 'If you don't get up, you'll be late to your own party at your own house, and that'd just be weird.'

Charissa stared at Dora for a moment. It was kinda hard to believe it with how she acted, but Dora was seventeen now, about to start her last year of school. But despite the age difference, Dora was probably the cousin Charissa saw the most of — Mum and Dora's dad were pretty much the only muggleborns in the family, so they made a point of getting along. Not that she really had all that many cousins she actually knew, but still. So Charissa was pretty sure she knew what was actually going on. 'I think you're just bored and you need someone to mess with.'

Dora made a face, and even though it wasn't a face she'd worn before, Charissa still knew what the expression meant. But really, she thought Dora trying to act all dignified had been a lost cause for some time by now. 'I am doing no such thing,' she said in a haughty voice, traces of her usual bouncing tone barely noticeable. 'But if I were, it would be solely because your brothers are so young, and that makes them boring.' Maybe she did have a point, or at least something not entirely dissimilar to one. Charissa's little brothers were eight and six — not exactly ages by which people are at all interesting. And messing with someone that young really just comes across as bullying.

Not that Charissa would ever admit Dora had a point, or was anything but a hyperactive loony. Not out loud, anyway.

'Fine,' she said, making her tone as long-suffering as possible. 'Get off me so I can change.' A crooked grin of victory on her face, Dora whipped away with a flourish, so smoothly Charissa was hardly even jostled. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she switched out her nightdress for a vest and pants — she'd need to be better dressed for when guests started arriving but, despite Dora's earlier assertions, she had more than enough time. Dora didn't bother leaving the room, of course, just stood there babbling. But since Dora had had a lack of personal modesty and a vanishingly small respect for the privacy of others since early childhood, Charissa was also long used to that, too.

Though she did manage to make Charissa uncomfortable this particular time, that had less to do with just her being there and more to do with what she chose to talk about. Apparently, Dora had discovered at school last year that she could do unbalanced switching spells, swapping one target for a target of much lesser mass. With a little tweak involving some conjuration, she could perform a _blank_ switching spell — swapping one target with absolutely nothing, sort of a short range teleportation spell for small objects. So, she'd gotten into the habit of stripping people of their clothes with a single wave of her wand during her, er, liaisons. To be completely fair, she'd come up with the tangent after offering to just do a switching spell to get Charissa dressed instantly, but still.

Charissa knew Dora had accrued an additional facet to her reputation — like she needed any more — for being... What was the euphemism Mum had used? Affectionate? Uncle Sirius once referred to her as an "obnoxious, flamboyant slag." Mum had been pretty annoyed with him when Charissa had announced her presence by asking what _slag_ meant, annoyed enough she'd never actually gotten an answer, so she assumed she wasn't supposed to have heard that.

A short walk, Dora still babbling the whole way, and they walked into the kitchen. But, somewhat to Charissa's surprise, the simple, tile-covered room wasn't empty. In a chair at the small wooden table at the center was Uncle Sirius. He'd inherited all the physical traits extremely common among a number of Noble Houses, including the Blacks. Shining hair and eyes dark as midnight, even skin as pale as snow, tall and thin, sharp face with high, prominent cheekbones. Charissa had gotten most of the same features herself, actually — not all the Noble Houses were dark-haired and fair-skinned, but the Longbottoms and Potters were just as much as the Blacks — though she was pretty sure her face would turn out more like Mum's when she grew up. He was lounging in his chair all languid, a mug of something steaming in one hand and a folded newspaper in another. He glanced up at Dora's voice, gave Charissa his trademark lopsided grin. 'If it isn't the birthday girl. Are you ready for—'

'Before you start teasing me,' she interrupted, 'I'd like some food, if there's any.'

Sirius made an affronted expression, as though he couldn't _believe_ Charissa thought he'd stoop so low as to mock her. But Charissa knew better and, by the giggling at her side, Dora did too. 'Peter brought Lily's favorite again. Oven,' he said, tilting his head in the proper direction.

Charissa couldn't help grinning, though she did feel a little bad about it. She couldn't help it because, well, Uncle Peter was an _absurdly_ good cook for reasons she'd never been able to figure out. Mum's favourite was especially good — muggle-style breakfast rolls dotted with pecans and layered in cinnamon and drenched in caramel. (Uncle Peter's mother was muggleborn, and Charissa assumed he intentionally brought Mum muggle-style food for the nostalgia.) But she did feel a little bad about it, because she knew why Peter kept making food for everyone all the time. From the way he acted, and a few comments from Mum and Uncle Remus, Charissa was pretty sure Uncle Peter had a vanishingly low degree of self-confidence, and a perhaps unhealthy degree of admiration for most people around him. So, at some level, he wasn't entirely sure why his friends bothered putting up with him. So, he regularly bribed them with deliciousness.

It would _almost_ make her feel guilty, she thought as she transferred a couple sticky rolls kept steaming by a warming charm from the pan to a plate, if he weren't _so damn good_ at it.

While she searched out some cider, Sirius was asking Dora, 'Are Andi and Ted here?'

'Nah,' Dora said, collapsing into one of the chairs. 'I got bored, so I apparated over early.'

Knew it.

For a second, Sirius looked confused. Then, a wary look on his face, he said, 'Right, you're seventeen now.'

'Right,' she said, a positively feral look on hers. 'I can fight back now without having to worry about you narking on me.' It was technically illegal to use magic outside of school before the age of seventeen, but it was generally left in the hands of individual parents to deal with it. Dora had been using magic at home pretty much constantly since even her very first break her very first year of school, but mostly just when she thought Aunt Andi wasn't watching, since she had deigned to punish her a few times.

It was obvious exactly what Dora was talking about — Sirius was an infamously incurable prankster, and didn't consider beneath him using magic to irritate children too young to retaliate — so he didn't bother playing dumb. 'I still have you dreadfully outclassed in experience, my very young little cousin.'

'I'd like to see you try.' Even though Charissa had just sat down with her rolls and cider, she paused at Dora's challenge, not reaching for her food yet. She didn't want to end up with caramel or cider in her face if the magic went awry, or up her nose if it was amusing enough.

Luckily, the exchange ended up being rather tame. For a long while, Uncle Sirius didn't do anything, just giving Dora a heavy, hooded stare. Just before Charissa started reaching for a roll, Sirius's hand suddenly moved almost faster than her eyes could follow into the opposite sleeve of his light summer robes. Impossibly, Dora was even faster — by the time Sirius started slipping his hand back out, wand clutched in his fingers, Dora had already drawn her own, a brilliantly aimed flash of white striking Sirius directly in the wrist an instant later. He let out a sharp wince, his hand jerking in pain, wand clattering against the table before falling to the floor. Nothing seemed to be happening to his wrist, just turning a little pink under his rubbing fingers, so Charissa assumed it had been a simple stinging jinx. Dora was just making a point, she guessed.

'Damn, kid,' Sirius muttered, bending to pick up his wand. 'How did you do that so fast?'

'Little telekinesis trick.' Dora held up her right hand for a moment, wiggling her fingers to show it was empty. Then, with a flick of her wrist, she was suddenly holding her wand. Another little twist, and it vanished down the same sleeve. She did it back and forth a few times, the motion so smooth and quick Charissa could hardly even see it happening. 'Alastor taught it to me.'

'Alastor?' repeated Sirius with a slight frown. 'Oh, you mean Sir Moody?' Charissa knew that was an Auror — all Aurors were referred to with the title Sir or Dame, depending on gender, and unless they happened to have a different title considered greater — but she couldn't remember which one off the top of her head.

'Yeah, obviously.'

'Why should that be—' A chagrined look suddenly crossed his face. 'Right. You got into that summer internship thing for incoming seventh years, didn't you?'

'Yep.' Dora's grin was a bit pompous, but Charissa had to admit she had a right to be a little full of herself for that one. The Aurors had such incredibly high standards there were only a couple dozen of them in total. That summer internship was only offered to the most promising of sixth years, a head start in the training regiment that even most current Aurors hadn't been lucky enough to get. Mum had said a couple months ago that they'd gotten nearly fifty applications this year, but only Dora and a boy whose name Charissa couldn't remember had been accepted.

'I thought Sir Moody retired, though.'

'He was about to, but he likes me, so he's staying on so I can do my internship with him.'

Sirius's lips twisted into a crooked smirk. 'Please tell me you aren't sha—'

'For the love of all that's cute and cuddly, Siri, he's _literally a hundred years older than me_.'

'And?'

'So, it would be weird.'

'I don't believe you really think that. Not at all.'

'Such faith in my moral character you have. I am so offended, I think I might cry.'

Sirius didn't say anything, just stared at her with a doubtful expression, a single eyebrow raised high.

'Okay, it's _possible_ he ordered me to keep my mind on what we were doing when I started flirting with him, said something about that being behavior unbecoming of an Auror, and _possibly_ hexed me unconscious when I pointed out Frank and Alice got together when they were already both Aurors. I mean, it's _possible_.'

'That's what I thought.'

'It's also _possible_ that, when I asked if anything, you know, _happened_ while I was out, he hexed me again.'

'Dora...'

She just giggled at the aggravated expression on his face.

Dora was a rather strange girl, Charissa knew that. But on the whole, it didn't really bother her. Stranger people were less likely to be boring. Most of her family could be considered strange in one way or another, to be honest.

For the next few minutes, while Charissa tried to eat her rolls without getting her hands too messy, Dora and Sirius talked across her. Well, not exactly — Sirius was still trying to read the paper, but Dora was doing her very best to annoy him. Charissa didn't see or hear much of what was going on, but did notice her uncle's voice growing gradually more and more terse. Just as Charissa started worrying the air might be filled with spellfire any second now, the air suddenly exploded into raucous noise, a little device on the counter deafeningly grinding down coffee beans. Someone must have turned it on. Charissa looked toward the door leading further into the house.

And there was her mother. She didn't really look very well. Her deep red hair was all frizzy and tangled, her round face marred by deep bags under tired green eyes. Charissa assumed she hadn't gotten a whole lot of sleep, since by the time Charissa was in bed Mum hadn't gotten home yet. Mum was an Auror, so she was often late getting home or, if she were dealing with some emergency or something, just didn't get home at all.

Mum was maybe halfway over to Charissa at the table when she suddenly froze at Dora's voice. 'Good morning, Lady Potter.'

For a moment, the corner of Mum's lips just twitched, as though repressing a scowl. 'We're not at the Office, Dora. You are allowed to keep calling me Lily in private.' To Charissa's amazement, Dora actually looked _embarrassed_. Dora almost never looked embarrassed. A couple seconds later, Mum was standing behind Charissa, where she leaned over. Charissa was suddenly wrapped in familiar arms, her mother's hair scratching at her cheek and neck. 'Happy birthday, sweetheart.' Charissa never really knew what to say in response to things like this, so she just sat there and smiled. A couple seconds and a kiss on the cheek later — she would probably be getting a lot of those today, considering how many of the guests were nobility — and Mum was making her way to her coffee. 'Peter outside setting up with James?'

Mum's back was turned, so she didn't actually see Sirius nodding. 'Remus is out there, too. And I think I might have caught Laurie showing up early to help, but it's possible I imagined it.'

Mum had to think about that one for a second, blinking to herself. 'Oh, right. Laurus Longbottom.'

'That's the one.'

'Can never keep all those Longbottoms straight. Tall and noisy, graduated a year ago, right?'

'Nah,' Dora said, 'he graduated just last month. Is pretty tall, though, and noisy is right. Especially if you get him in the right mood.'

For a couple seconds, Charissa had no idea what Dora was talking about. Then she figured it out, and was then a little grossed out for a couple more seconds. That was one of their _cousins_ Dora was talking about. But Charissa got over it pretty quickly. Mostly because she quickly brought up a family tree in her head, and realised that, yes, they were cousins, but they were _fourth_ cousins. That didn't even really count. Dora was more closely related to Charissa than she was to Laurie, and even the two of them were distant enough that it would be perfectly legal for Charissa to marry Dora's brother, if she had one.

Though Charissa still thought it was _kinda weird_ when second cousins got married to each other, even though it happened all the time. Uncle Sirius's parents, for example. But that wasn't really the point.

Hardly a couple minutes had passed — Sirius and Dora still sniping at each other, Mum too occupied with caramely goodness to really say anything — before someone else was walking into the room, this time from the door leading outside. Her father also looked very much like a Black, with the same dark hair and pale skin and thin tallness, though his eyes were significantly lighter, tinged much further toward hazel. He also wore glasses, and Charissa could count on the fingers of one hand the number of people she'd ever met who actually needed glasses. She honestly assumed it was a quidditch injury. 'Oh, hey,' he said, glancing between Charissa and Mum, 'my girls are finally awake.'

Mum gave him a slightly annoyed look. 'Finally? I didn't even get to bed until after you were already up for the morning.'

'Excuses. Happy birthday, love.' Charissa wasn't entirely sure what to say to that again, so she just smiled at him. Then, pacing slowly toward her, Dad turned again to say to Mum, 'We have to check the post redirection wards again. We missed an exception.'

'Who?'

Dad pulled from a chest pocket of his light summer robe a thick envelope of expensive-looking parchment. 'Department of Education. Here you go, love,' he said, setting the envelope down in front of Charissa. He kissed her on the top of the head quick, and then was rapidly engaged in a noisy conversation with Uncle Sirius about something she wasn't paying attention to.

She was a bit distracted, because she knew exactly what this letter was. On one side, the side facing up where her father dropped it, bore her name and address, inscribed over a fainter image of the sigil for the Department of Education — a wand and quill crossed over a scroll embossed with roses and daffodils (a minor modification from the one for the Ministry at large, which used a sword instead of a quill). She flipped to the other side to check the imprint on the wax. It was actually in colour — the seal they'd used put a colour-change charm onto the wax, which she'd always thought was pretty clever, really. She recognised the impression instantly, of course. She'd know the official sigil used by Hogwarts anywhere.

There'd been absolutely no way Hogwarts wouldn't be accepting her, and absolutely no way she wouldn't be going when they did. But even so, she couldn't help the grin that spread on her face.

* * *

The whole birthday gathering business was, to be honest, completely tiring. But then, it always was. For one thing, Charissa had to be all properly dressed and tidily cleaned up, which she never liked doing. Mum had apparently found the time to go out and pick up a dress for her — a somewhat frilly white thing, just frilly enough to be annoying, and in what Charissa was a little surprised to notice was a muggle style — but since she hadn't been there, it didn't fit exactly properly. Which was why Dora was there to help her get ready. After her bath, all it took was a little transfiguration, and the aggravating dress was sitting on her just as it was supposed to, which didn't really make it any less aggravating. Charissa was a little surprised when Dora also did a quick colour-change charm to switch most of the frilliness to a green that matched her eyes, but she didn't bother commenting. Then she slipped a couple bracelets on each wrist — making very sure to include the one Lady Longbottom had given her a couple years ago, a strip of gold dotted with tiny bits of glittering red here and there — a ring on the middle finger of her right hand bearing the family sigil always worn by the heir to House Potter in public — which had had to be dramatically resized when she'd inherited the title from her father when she was four — and a very particular necklace — this one a gift from Lady Black, silver and blue gemstones shaped into a flower Charissa didn't recognise. She still thought it was a little weird to be gifting children jewelry, honestly, and she still felt _really_ weird wearing it, but nobility could be pretty weird about things like this.

It was just when Charissa was done tying her sandals, completely ignoring Dora doing whatever she was doing to her hair with a few flicks of her wand, that she asked Dora if she shouldn't be off getting ready somewhere. Dora just grinned, and waved her wand.

Charissa was completely jealous of both Dora's inherent talent as a metamorphmaga and her incredible skill with pretty much any sort of magic — she was perfectly willing to admit that. Even as Charissa watched, Dora changed, her short purple hair deepening to black even as it extended to spill past her shoulders in elegant curls, her eyes changing colour to match, her face sharpening into a distinct familial similarity to the various Blacks Charissa had met. She shrunk in height a few inches, her chest and shoulders and hips shifting to a form a bit less androgynous than she'd decided to lounge around in. Even as all that happened, her clothes changed as well — the only part of this, Charissa knew, she actually needed a wand for. The conspicuously muggle jeans she'd been wearing changed into softer, thinner leggings a solid black, the little rope anklets she'd hardly noticed earlier expanded into sandals of black leather and silver accents, a similar band around her neck shortened and widened into a choker of deep red ribbon, her simple cotton shirt stretching and changing into a black and silver summer dress robe of what looked like silk, one of those ones that more draped lightly on the body than hugged it, falling just past the knees, in multiple light bands of fluttering cloth, sitting so low below the shoulders Charissa was pretty sure it was supported by a sticking charm. The whole carefully-coordinated process took maybe four seconds, finishing with Dora just smirking at her.

When Charissa finally found her words back, she just asked, 'Did you just transfigure yourself fancy clothes?'

'No,' her annoyingly talented cousin said with a shrug and even wider smile. 'This is what they're supposed to look like. I got dressed this morning, then transfigured it all into something more comfortable before coming here.'

Charissa just shook her head, trying not to let show how envious she was. She couldn't wait until she started learning magic.

Then guests were arriving, and while it might be a little mean or unappreciative or whatever, Charissa then spent the rest of the day being bored. The space her father and uncles had set up was pretty, she wasn't going to deny that. The several tables and dozens of chairs necessary to fit everyone surrounded and shadowed by greenery and flowers — anything in red or yellow carefully excluded, she guessed to reduce the likelihood of an argument. And the food was good. Apparently, Dad had borrowed a couple elves from House Longbottom to help with that part. And most people did come bearing gifts. Much of them were things she couldn't fathom ever needing — she honestly had no idea why people kept buying her jewelry, it was so weird — but the people who actually knew her a little bit brought her books, which was great. Could never have too many books. Could sometimes have _better_ books, yes. The Weasleys, who were ignoring how much some of the family really didn't want them there rather admirably, had a perhaps unhealthy obsession with quidditch, and either didn't realise Charissa wasn't particularly interested or were simply trying to convert her, she wasn't sure which. Somewhat to her surprise, the Lovegoods showed up — she knew Luna a little, but she'd honestly thought the strange girl and her even stranger father would have had _negative_ interest in coming for her birthday — with a book for her that was also useless, but only temporarily useless. The elder Lovegood said it was in Late Old English, and was even written in fuþorc — the alphabet, not the glyphs. Charissa could mostly read fuþorc, though slowly, but the words themselves were nonsense. But she'd be learning Old English for her Ancient Runes class when she got to third year, so she'd be able to read it eventually, just not now.

Though, actually, she thought it was a little odd it was written in Old English, and not Classical Brīþwn. But she guessed it didn't matter.

But Charissa had a number of reasons she didn't really enjoy the gathering. For one thing, there were way too many people. Being surrounded by too many people made her uncomfortable. She couldn't explain why, it just did. It didn't help that, well, several of the people here were powerful individuals. There were three people here who had seats on the Wizengamot. Just for her birthday party! Sure, one of them was her father, but _still_. When she'd presented herself to Lady Longbottom, the woman had been gracious enough not to do the manhandling so many adults seemed to make a habit of doing, but Lady Black wasn't nearly so nice. Grabbing her chin in weak, wrinkled hands, tilting her face up to give her a long look. She could tell her great aunt wasn't completely displeased with her — the old woman referred to Charissa as her niece, which she wouldn't have done if she was so unimpressed she was embarrassed to share blood with her — but the process still wasn't pleasant.

Before too long, she did manage to sneak off with some of the younger kids. Her brother Linden was the youngest of their group — her youngest brother Perry was hovering around Mum — the rest closer to her own age. Neville, Gwyneira, a couple of Longbottoms she didn't really know too well, Ginny, Luna, and, unfortunately, her cousin Draco. Aunt Narcissa had made it this time, bringing her son along, and Charissa wasn't sure she was too pleased about that. Draco was just fine to talk to alone, or play chess with. A little annoying, but not too bad. But this particular grouping just made him more annoying. The Longbottoms he was slightly snide to, though not _too_ rude — Gwyneira was the future Lady Longbottom, after all. But the others weren't so lucky. Luna he was just mean to, and he seemed to be pretending Ginny didn't exist.

At least Lord Malfoy hadn't come too. It seemed half the times Draco's father and Uncle Sirius were in the same place at the same time they ended up with their wands drawn on each other.

By the time Charissa started to get really sleepy, the sky quickly darkening, most everyone had already left. It was really just her parents, her brothers — who were both asleep — Alice, Remus, Sirius, and Peter. Charissa had no idea what any of them were talking about. She was pretty much half-asleep already, and didn't really have much concentration in her left. But still, before she actually made it to bed, she got two surprises. And only one of them was good.

The first started with a crack of apparition, someone arriving even as the sun disappeared. Charissa looked around for the newcomer through sleepy, somewhat unfocused eyes, finally finding Mum's friend Severus just at the edge of the trees. She blinked at him for a few seconds. She really wouldn't have thought Severus would come. Severus, as far as Charissa knew, was the oldest friend Mum was still in contact with. But, for some reason that had never really been explained to her, Dad and Sirius completely _despised_ Severus, a hate that was quite obviously mutual, so Severus had probably made a habit of keeping his distance for that reason. It probably didn't help that Severus was almost as busy as Mum was.

Charissa knew Severus was one of the foremost potioneers and alchemists in the world. In fact, Uncle Remus had once told her that Severus was widely known as the very best of their generation in his field in all of Britain, an intuitive talent that he'd had practically since their first day at school. Like many geniuses Charissa had heard or read about, it was very easy for Severus to get so wrapped up in his work that he completely lost track of time. It apparently wasn't at all uncommon for him to forget to sleep, forget to eat multiple meals in a row, just because he was so completely focused on whatever it was he was working on. It was rather obvious just looking at him too — his face seemed almost emaciated, the way his simple black robes sat on him implying the frame beneath was vanishingly thin.

One of the very few disciplines of magic Charissa had been allowed to play around with before school was potions, originally just with parental supervision but now whenever she wanted. So, pretty much every time she saw Severus, she'd asked for any professional tips or advice he had, a book he recommended, even a couple times to stay for an hour or two and teach her some stuff. He refused every time, though, a grimace of annoyance on his pallid face.

As Severus started walking toward their little group she watched everyone's reactions, still completely confused why no one liked each other. There was Sirius, who looked half ready to jump up and draw his wand on him, and might have if Peter hadn't grabbed his arm. There was Remus, who just watched Severus impassively for a couple seconds before giving a wary look toward Dad. Dad seemed completely furious, but doing his best to hide it. Alice straightened a little, but not with anger or anything like it — more like she thought there was about to be an interesting show, and didn't want to miss it.

But Mum, looking even more tired than Charissa felt, just smiled at him. 'Oh, hey, Sev. Didn't think you were coming.'

Severus completely ignored the glares he was getting from Dad and Sirius, and gave Mum something of a flat look. His voice just as flat, he said, 'I do believe I was told in no uncertain terms that I was going to come for at least five minutes regardless of my own wishes.'

With a grin, Mum said, 'That sounds like something I might have said, yes.'

He came to a stop a couple paces away from Mum, standing just off the table. 'I also believe I was told, with equal authority, that I would be coming with something for Charissa.' His eyes flicked to her for just an instant. 'I distinctly recall being threatened with violence if I didn't.'

'That also sounds like something I might have said.'

Severus just stared at Mum for a moment, his face pulled into something much like a long-suffering grimace. Then he turned to Charissa, held out to her the book folded under his arm with an air of carelessness. Charissa took it, really more confused than anything. The book was long, wide, and thick, easily several hundred pages, the cover one of those old, leather things. It had the distinct feeling of an old book that had been magically repaired — a combination of impressions, the most easily noticed being a weird thin smoothness to the cover, a lack of cracks in the spine, an unnaturally striking contrast between page and ink. The title on the cover was _The Substance of Essence_ , but Charissa didn't recognise it. 'What is it?'

For a second, Charissa was sure he was about to say, _A book_ , but a glare from Mum cut him off. 'It's a text on the theory of potions. It found it in my mother's library when I was a few years younger than you, and read the entirety perhaps five times before I even got to Hogwarts. It's a useful text. The author is very thorough.'

Charissa glanced back down at the book in her hands. On the one hand, she was thrilled — he'd finally made a reading recommendation like she'd asked so many times! On the other hand, she wasn't really sure how to feel about being given this particular book. Had it really been his mother's? She knew Severus's mother had died some years ago, before Charissa had even been born. Was it really a good idea to be accepting this? 'Erm, I'm not sure if I should—'

Voice suddenly a bit sharper, he said, 'Just keep it.' He winced at his own outburst, glancing around at the annoyed expressions on a few of the faces around him. 'I have the thing memorised by now, and it's just taking up space on my bookshelf. Don't restrain yourself on my account.' It looked like he'd been about to continue, but he suddenly broke off, glancing at Mum again. Charissa was pretty sure that meant he'd almost said something mean.

'Er...' She still felt a little weird about it, but, well, if Severus was really perfectly okay with her having it, she wasn't going to keep protesting for reasons he evidently didn't care about. 'Thank you, Master Snape.' She'd almost called him _Severus_ , but decided to address him with the proper title and everything instead.

He didn't say anything in response, just sniffed lightly, looked away.

That was surprise number one. Surprise number two came maybe ten minutes later. Alice and Remus had just left a minute ago, Sirius and Peter and Severus on their way out. Charissa was half-asleep when she was suddenly woken up by a flash of red-orange light and a roar of wind, both emanating from a burst of flame which had suddenly appeared right in front of Mum. A couple seconds later, the fire vanished, depositing an envelope of thick, expensive-looking parchment right into Mum's hands. For a moment she just held it, glancing around at the variety of curious and wary expressions around her. Then she broke it open, unfolded the letter inside. For a moment, she read.

Then, with a heavy sigh, she collapsed against the table, head resting on arms folded over the surface. 'Dammit.'

'What's wrong?'

'Albus is sending me to Magyarland.'

'Albus?' asked Severus with the slightest of frowns.

Though it seemed to pain Dad greatly, he turned to answer the question. 'The High Enchanter.'

'I see. I was under the impression the High Enchanter didn't have the authority to order Aurors anywhere, much less so far outside the borders of Britain.'

Mum sighed. 'Meeting a request from the ICW. Rufus and Amelia will have to sign off on it, but that's really only a technicality.'

Sirius said, 'Why are you going to Magyarland anyway?'

For a second, Severus pinned Sirius with a disbelieving look, as though shocked Sirius couldn't answer that question himself. 'Éjbevissza.'

'What?'

'Dark Lord,' Mum muttered, hand waving dismissively over her head. 'Been making a big mess of things over there for a while.'

No one said anything for some moments, just sitting in silence. They were probably having thoughts much like Charissa was having. Her mother was being sent off to a foreign country to fight a dangerous dark wizard, dangerous enough the Magyars were asking other countries for help. The thought was really scary. She knew her mother had a hard, dangerous job, but she could usually go most of the time without thinking about it. She didn't know what would happen if Mum got sent away, and something bad happened, and she never came—

No. No, she wasn't going to think about that. She wasn't going to think about that at all.

Mum had raised her head, gazing at Charissa with eyes somehow even more exhausted than they'd been a minute ago. 'We'll go to get your school stuff tomorrow, before I have to leave. Okay, sweetheart?'

Charissa didn't think there was anything _okay_ about her mother being sent off hundreds of miles away to fight a deadly dark wizard. She didn't think there was anything okay about that _at all_. But she knew there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop that. So she just said, 'Okay.'

* * *

 _A few random worldbuilding notes:_

Metamorphmaga _— Metamorphmagus is, as you might have guessed, Latin...well, technically a mix of Greek and Latin, but the last part is Latin, anyway._ Magus _is the masculine conjugation, so when referring to Dora, it will always be conjugated to the feminine_ maga _instead. Well, okay, technically even the last part was borrowed out of Greek (μετά plus μορφή plus μάγος), but since Rowling uses the Latin -us instead of the Greek -os, I choose to interpret it as the Latin borrowing._ Because _, that's why._

Brīþwn _— A lot of people don't seem to realize this, but British people haven't always spoken English. Before the Germanic people took over the island, what is now England was dominated by a Celtic-speaking culture, their language closely related to modern Welsh. In my retooling of a fair number of worldbuilding details, the magical British people held on to much more of their native culture than the muggle British people did. In fact, the official language of the Wizengamot was still Brīþwn until the early nineteenth century (though by that time few people actually spoke it at home, a case of a dead language being preserved past its time for cultural reasons). Part of the Hogwarts curriculum will include classes in Brīþwn for the first two years — much as how education in many Christian nations required Latin until very recently — but no one really speaks it regularly anymore._

Magyarland _— Hungary. I was going to just say_ Hungary _, but since the name came to be used by western Europeans in the first place due to a lack of understanding of the local history, I thought it would be weird for magical people to use the name also. Hungary is called in their own language "Magyarorszag," to which "Magyarland" would be the rough English equivalent ("Magyar" being the endonym). Éjbevissza is a made up Hungarian title, and is probably grammatically questionable, since I don't speak that language._

High Enchanter _— Presiding officer of the Wizengamot, Chief Warlock in canon. The word "warlock" literally means "truce-breaker" — the modern sense of a male magic-user only came about poetically from that, the very reason most neopagans don't use it — so it strikes me as a rather odd title for mages to pick. I considered a few alternative titles before just going with something simple._

* * *

 _I am such an enormous language nerd._

 _Until next time,_

 _~Wings_


	2. August 1st, 1991

Charissa wished she'd just stayed in bed.

When she awoke, it was early morning, the sun just barely brightening the eastern horizon. For a long moment, she considered just going straight back to sleep, but her throat was really dry, and it was distracting her. So, grumbling at the annoyance that was the need to drink, she got up and made her way downstairs.

Somewhat to her surprise, the light in the kitchen was on. One or both of her parents must be awake already. Shrugging to herself, she just kept walking. She was almost to the door when her father spoke. 'I just wish you wouldn't keep inviting him over is all.'

She froze, frowning to herself. Dad's voice had sounded oddly harsh — not yelling or anything, but with a slight bite at the corners. After a second of sleepy confusion, she realised her parents were arguing. She didn't know about what, but she wasn't really sure she wanted to know. Maybe she should just walk in? They'd probably stop if she did. But that might be really, really uncomfortable. Maybe she should just turn around, no matter how thirsty she was?

If anything, Mum sounded even more annoyed than Dad did. 'For the love of— When are you ever going to grow up, James? You and Sirius revert to bloody teenagers whenever Sev is around.'

'I just don't want the greasy git skulking around my family. I don't think that's really too much to ask.'

There was silence for a few seconds. It would have been enough for Charissa to make it all the way to the door and into the room, but she still wasn't sure if that was the best idea or not. Maybe she should just turn around and— 'I don't get it. That's all, I don't get it. I really don't understand what your problem is with him. I mean,' Mum said, speaking over an interruption from Dad, 'if it were _him_ whinging on about _you_ , I'd understand it completely. Wouldn't be happy about it, I guess, but I'd get it. I mean, you've been nothing but a bitch to Sev since the moment you two met. At some point along the line, he learned to _act like an adult_. I'm really starting to get tired of waiting for you to catch up.'

'And I don't understand why it's somehow unreasonable to not want my wife's exboyfriend lurking about!'

'For the last time, we dated for _four months_ , James, _fifteen years ago_. When are you going to get the fuck over it?'

'As soon as I don't have to see him all the time, wondering if maybe—'

'Don't even _dare_ finish that sentence.' Mum's voice had suddenly turned low and thick, an air of imminent danger about it, powerful enough Charissa felt herself shiver. 'In case you've forgotten, it's not _me_ who has the problem with fidelity.' There was a suddenly clattering, probably a spoon jumping around inside a cup. 'I need to burn this off. I'll be outside.' Seconds later, Charissa heard the door outside swing open, then fall heavily closed.

Charissa had no idea what to do now. She wished she'd just stayed in bed. She hadn't completely understood that conversation — she didn't know what Mum had meant by _fidelity_ , for example. But even if the words hadn't made sense, the anger on their voices definitely had. She might just be sleepy, but she was having really weird thoughts, that were really scaring her. She couldn't stop thinking of a couple years ago, when a couple of her Longbottom cousins, their parents got really angry with each other, and now they don't live with each other anymore, and her cousins have been going crazy getting caught between them, and the whole situation was all depressing and confusing and if it happened to her she didn't know what—

No. Okay. She needed to calm down. Sitting here in the hallway going silently mad wasn't going to fix anything. It wasn't going to get her that drink of water either.

Charissa got her drink, ignoring how the windows rattled a little with the force of the spells Mum was throwing around in the yard, very carefully avoiding looking Dad in the eye so he hopefully wouldn't notice how scared she was.

* * *

Somewhat to Charissa's surprise, upon reaching Diagon Alley Mum immediately split them up into two groups. While she and Mum were going to be getting her clothes, her books and writing stuff, and probably her wand, Dad and Linden and Perry were going to get her potions stuff — which would be a short trip, since she had most everything she needed anyway — and then waste some time in the quidditch store until it was time to meet up for lunch. That really surprised Charissa. Dad used to be a professional quidditch player, before Grandpa died and he had to take over the family's seat in the Wizengamot, and was still obsessed with the game. Mum had very little interest in that stuff herself, and Charissa thought it was all rather silly. Dad had had better luck converting her brothers, though they were still too little to do much with it. Half the time they came out here, he dragged them all over there, and they spent enough time in that stupid store that Charissa or Mum or both ended up very bored and annoyed.

So, on the one hand, Charissa thought it was a bit odd they were splitting up like this. Considering what she'd overheard this morning, she couldn't help being a little worried. But, on the other hand, in splitting them up Mum was also giving Dad the opportunity to do what he wanted as long as he was here anyway. She wasn't entirely sure what to think about it.

She didn't have to wait very long to figure out why Mum wanted her alone, though she did get a minor surprise to distract her while she did. While waiting to be fitted for robes they ran into Susan Bones. The kids of the Noble Houses tended to be right around the same age — Charissa had a weird feeling that was on purpose — so she already knew Susan was going to be in the same year as her. She knew a couple other Noble Houses had kids starting this year too. Neville Longbottom, of course, and Draco Malfoy. Also Daphne Greengrass, and Tracey Davis, and Millie Bulstrode. She was pretty sure the Notts had a kid starting this year, a boy, but she couldn't remember his name. But anyway, she knew Susan better than most of the others, though not as well as, say, Neville. Susan's father was Lord Bones, one of Dad's allies in the Wizengamot, and Susan's aunt was Mum's boss's boss — she had been an Auror when Mum first started — so she'd seen Susan a fair number of times. They weren't really close friends, but Susan still managed to distract Charissa from both her problematic thoughts and the awkward process of being fitted. She didn't like being poked at.

But before long she was alone with her mother in the bookstore, carefully searching for the textbooks she needed. Just as carefully avoiding looking Mum in the eye. She felt indescribably awkward. If Mum saw her face, she'd probably know something was wrong, but then Charissa would have to explain what was wrong, and she really didn't really feel like it. The explanation was probably uncomfortable, and she probably didn't want to know either. Not knowing was scary, but bad news would probably be scarier.

'Oh, here it is,' Mum said, pulling a book off a shelf. 'Remus always did like Jigger. Not surprised he assigned his Defence text. A little dense for younger children, maybe, but we'll see.'

Charissa blinked for a second. 'Remus?'

'Didn't you hear? Remus is starting as Defence professor this year. So, I guess he's Professor Lupin to you now.'

No, she hadn't heard that. It wasn't bad news, though. Remus was one of the quieter members of her family — well, they weren't technically related, but she'd been calling him _Uncle_ forever, and he was always around — but she knew he was really smart, and definitely nicer than the stories she'd heard about some teachers. And, well, she knew Remus had a lot of trouble finding work. It wasn't something the adults usually talked about around her, but she'd consciously noticed his money trouble at some point. She couldn't help feeling a little relieved he was getting what she knew to be a rather good job. Though she did think of a problem right away. 'But what's he gonna do about, er—' She leaned in a little closer, dropped her voice to a whisper. '—when he's ill?'

Mum didn't even bother dropping her voice. Charissa guessed it didn't matter a whole lot — from what she said, most people wouldn't be able to guess what they were talking about. 'As long as he keeps on his potion schedule, he should be fine. He might miss a day here or there, but Sirius volunteered to cover for him occasionally if he really needs it.'

Charissa glanced up at her. 'Erm...'

A crooked smirk crossing Mum's face, she said, 'Yeah, we thought of that too. Peter convinced him it wasn't a good idea. But don't worry, it'll be taken care of.'

'Okay.' They were in what Charissa knew to be the transfiguration section, filled with texts on everything from the basics to even some alchemy. She was scanning the shelves, less reading the titles and more just looking for a bunch of the same cover next to each other — they'd have multiple of the text she needed for school all bunched together, so they should be conspicuous. But hardly had they gotten into the isolated corner of the shop when Mum pulled out her wand, gave it a somewhat absent wave into the air. Charissa immediately noticed the chatter around the shop, the ambient noise from the street, all of it vanish, as though she and Mum were suddenly alone in the universe. 'Er...'

'You heard your father and I arguing this morning.'

It wasn't a question. Charissa glanced up at Mum's face, but looked away almost immediately, turning back to the shelves. She really didn't want to talk about this. If she thought about it too much her chest went all tight, and she just wanted to ignore it. Her voice low, hardly above a whisper, she muttered, 'Yeah.'

'Thought so.' Charissa only got more nervous when Mum stepped closer, dropping to a knee next to her, so they were nearly the same height. 'You don't need to be so scared, sweetheart. Nothing's going to happen. We'll get over it.'

Charissa glanced over at her, but just for second. 'You sure?'

Mum let out a short sigh, running a hand through her hair, which really wasn't making Charissa feel any better. 'I know you're still so young, Charissa, and things seem much more simple, black and white when you're a kid. But, really, it's the couples who don't argue that you should worry about.'

With what she knew to be a really confused look on her face, she turned back to Mum. 'Huh?'

'Let's see if I can explain this in a way that makes sense.' Mum was quiet for a few seconds, staring at the floor right around Charissa's feet. Then she nodded to herself. 'Okay. You love your brothers, right?'

Charissa blinked at her. 'Yeah.'

'But you still get annoyed with them sometimes.'

'Erm.' She really didn't get where Mum was going with this, but it's not like she had a lot of choice in this conversation. So she just agreed.

'Okay. You remember that time last year Linden stole your diary? Had Sirius copy the most embarrassing pages he could find? Threw the diary in the fireplace? And then, when you thought it was done, started quoting from it?'

Quite suddenly, Charissa felt her throat start tightening, her face start warming, clenching further and flaming hotter with each word. Yes. Yes, she did remember that. She'd written in there she wished sometimes Luna would stop being so depressing — that was shortly after her mother had died. That was nothing she would _ever_ say out loud, and had honestly felt a little bad even as she was writing it, and it had taken weeks to get Luna to start talking to her again after Linden let it slip. There were other little things too. A couple of the things she'd heard adults say about Dora — though it had been obvious Dora didn't care a whit what they thought, since she'd hardly reacted at all, so that one didn't matter so much. A bit of her complaining about Ronald Weasley, which had fortunately been repeated when the Weasley in question hadn't been around. One bit where she was thinking to herself that Gwyneira, Neville's little sister, would be really pretty when she grew up, which all the adults had made jokes about that she hadn't really understood, but had been embarrassing all the same. Oh, yes, she _definitely_ remembered that. She couldn't keep the annoyance completely off her voice grinding out, 'Yes.'

'You were really annoyed with him — still are a bit now — and maybe even hated him a bit at the time, right?' Charissa hesitated. She wasn't really sure if she should admit to hating her little brother even a little bit. But she relented under her mother's piercing green gaze, and nodded. 'Even though he was really awful to you, and you got really mad at him for a while, you went back to normal not too long afterward. You love him enough to get over it. Actually, if you didn't love him in the first place it probably wouldn't have even bothered you nearly as much.

'See, even people who love each other don't get along _perfectly all the time_. That sort of thing only happens in stories. You can't expect your relationships with your friends or your family or anyone else to go smoothly every second of every day. People argue, and people fight, and sometimes they even get angry enough to hurt each other. But that doesn't necessarily mean they don't love each other, or that they're going to give up.'

Charissa was starting to think this was one of those things that wouldn't completely make sense until she was older. She could kind of see what Mum was saying, but, well, Charissa and Linden weren't really the same thing as Mum and Dad. It's not like she could — what was the word again? right — divorce her brother. But Mum didn't seem worried, at least she didn't think, so she guessed she could just try to forget about it for now. But even so, she couldn't help asking, 'So you're not getting divorced?'

A look of such surprise crossed Mum's face that Charissa knew instantly that divorce had been the furthest thing from Mum's mind. 'No? Why wou—? Oh, Laurie's parents.' Charissa had to think about that for a second before confirming to herself it was Laurie's parents who had split up a little bit ago. It could be confusing sometimes to keep the Longbottoms straight — there were so many of them. 'That's really not something you have to worry about, sweetheart. Your father and I have had worse fights than this one, and even during our worst one I never seriously considered leaving him. That's not something I'm planning on doing.'

That wasn't _exactly_ the most comforting thing Mum could have said. She'd come right out and said they'd had worse fights, and specifically said she'd never _seriously_ considered it, which only made sense to say if she'd considered it less than seriously. And Mum said she wasn't _planning_ on it, not that it would never happen. Charissa decided that probably just meant she was being honest. Not saying what would make Charissa stop worrying, whether or not it was accurate, but just saying what was true. If anything, that was more mollifying than a lie would be. Unless, of course, Mum was intentionally doing that to _sound_ like she was telling the truth, but Charissa didn't think Mum would be that manipulative with her. Uncle Sirius or Dora might do something like that in a heartbeat, but not Mum.

So she nodded. 'Okay.'

Only a couple minutes after that, and they were at Ollivander's. Charissa had been told exactly what to expect coming here, from multiple sources. Ollivander's weird, distracted behavior — he was reminding her somewhat of Uncle Regulus, actually — the long process of randomly trying out wands until one clicked with her. Around the time she fruitlessly waved the eighth one, she was starting to realise it wasn't supposed to take this long. Mum, standing over to the side, seemed to be growing increasingly curious. By the time she passed the twelfth, Ollivander was absolutely ecstatic. The strange little man had a huge smile on his face, an extra bounce in his step he hadn't before, and seemed on the edge of laughter with each additional failure. Charissa was getting the weird impression Ollivander lived for the frustrating customers. But, then, she guessed geniuses could be like that sometimes — there was no dispute Ollivander was an uncommon master in his art.

Finally, at what felt like the thousandth time a random stick of wood was shoved into her hand, something actually happened. Well, okay, it was the _second_ time something happened, but she wasn't counting that wand that had screamed at her loud and high enough to crack the windows. It was possibly the oddest thing she had ever felt. At once she felt like she was sitting too close to a fire, all dry and hot, but also like she had been standing out in the rain, a seeping feeling of wet coldness. Simultaneously, her arm all the way up to her elbow tingling, she felt something else that was just... _odd_. It was a bit like hearing dozens of whispers, so low she could barely notice them, too quiet to make out words. But instead of _outside_ of her head, brought in through hearing, it felt like it was _inside_ her head. The whispering came with the strangest sense of excitement, as though the voice were eager to meet her, and couldn't wait to do new and interesting things together.

She realised after a moment this was _her new wand talking to her_. Honestly, she would expect that thought to unnerve her a bit, but the thought of being scared of her wand was so odd it didn't even really make sense. Which was itself a little odd, but she didn't really need to think about that right now.

Ollivander broke into her thoughts with a peculiar sigh. 'Fascinating.'

She tore her eyes away from her wand and back up to its maker. But all she could really think of to say was, 'Huh?'

Ollivander reached to take her wand back from her, and Charissa had to fight the powerful urge, arising from absolutely nowhere, to tear it away from him before he could. He wrapped it up back in its box, the whole while giving her a hooded look she couldn't quite interpret. 'Very peculiar wand, is all,' he said in a soft, faraway voice. 'Unicorn hair core, nothing too unusual about that. But it's a very rare day when I sell an acacia wand.'

Since they were going through so many wands, Ollivander had stopped listing off the traits of each particular one, so that was the first she'd heard that. But that didn't really mean it was all that significant to her. She honestly didn't know how much the core or wood mattered. But it obviously meant something to Mum. The second he said the name of the wood, she took in the shortest of gasps. 'Acacia, really?'

'Yes, acacia.' As Mum moved over to pay, an odd expression Charissa really couldn't read on her face, Ollivander explained a little to her. 'Acacia wands are exceedingly rare — I only have five at the moment. They don't take to anyone very easily, nor very often. To a poor match, acacia wands tend to be weak and clumsy. To someone the wand does not belong, it might not respond at all. But to a good match—' He didn't finish the sentence, but just made a little shrug in his odd, inscrutable way. 'Good luck at Hogwarts, Miss Potter.' Then, with a nod and a _milady_ to Mum, he disappeared into the back of the shop.

* * *

Charissa wasn't exactly sure why it was a tradition for a young witch or wizard to be given a pet around her age. It seemed a rather silly thing to her. Both her parents expected her to be getting an owl, of course, but she didn't really see much use for that. The family already had an owl, and she would be spending most of her time at Hogwarts, which had dozens of them. But if she wasn't going to be getting an owl, she honestly had no idea what she'd be getting instead. Or even why she should be getting anything anyway. It was weird.

Her brothers were wandering around the store, looking at the variety of animals, both magical and non-magical, completely packing the space. Barely reigned in by her parents, they jumped around and around, their voices high and loud enough some of the animals mirrored them with sounds of protest. Charissa wasn't nearly as excited. She mostly just thought it was hot, noisy, and smelly in here. Maybe she should cave and get an owl, so they could just go home already.

She was going to get Dad's attention to suggest they do exactly that when her voice died in her throat as she fell in love in approximately two seconds.

She had absolutely no idea why she was affected so strongly. It was just a cat, after all, and it was even _asleep_. In one of those cages, piled along with the other cats, lying curled up with a single paw poking out through the bars. It was a tiny little thing — Charissa didn't know very much about cats, how big they should be at what ages, but she guessed it couldn't be older than six months or so. She had no idea why, but she just found the little thing indescribably adorable. Ridiculously poofy, curled up against the corner, almost perfectly white save for a spot of brownish-black along its back, a smear across its face and one ear, the paw stuck out into the aisle clenching and relaxing as it slept. It was just _so adorable,_ and it was honestly kind of weird how suddenly and intensely she decided it was _so adorable_ , but it _was_ , enough there was this weird tightness in her throat and she had to restrain herself from letting out embarrassing noises of adoration because that would really be weird just standing here and—

A voice came out of the air right next to her, and Charissa jumped hard enough she nearly fell over. 'I'm not entirely sure you would want to buy him, Miss.'

Charissa glanced over at the woman, recognising the shopkeeper who had, to be honest, overreacted at the appearance of her father. Some people still recognised him from his quidditch days, and quidditch fans could be really, really weird. But anyway, she was talking about the cat. 'What's wrong with him?'

The woman shrugged. 'Nothing's wrong with him. His breed just isn't intended to be a normal sort of pet, you know.' When she didn't respond, the woman said, 'He's an Iya.'

Very helpful. 'Alright. What's an Iya?'

'Specially bred wildcat — with a little bit of kneazle blood as well, I think. But they're not exactly a normal cat. They were bred intentionally to be familiars, back when such things were common practice. They are extraordinarily intelligent. They can't speak, of course — they don't have the proper physiology to form words — but tests have shown they can understand a little bit of English when they're fully grown. They live much longer than normal cats. And, well, there are the effects of the familiar bond itself.'

'You're going to have to explain that for her too.' Charissa jumped again — that was her mother's voice, coming from right behind her. People just kept sneaking up on her.

'Well.' The woman looked a little uncomfortable all of a sudden, shifting back and forth in place. 'That does vary a little bit person to person. Almost always a limited degree of telepathy. Usually only one way — the familiar can tell what you are feeling, but not the other way around. Some familiars, if the bond is powerful enough, can cast a little magic by themselves. Nothing too complicated, usually just a couple simple spells. The most common things Iya specifically can do involve turning themselves invisible, and an alternate form of apparation.'

'Like elves?'

It was Mum who answered. 'No, not at all like elves. The apparition elves do is virtually identical to ours, only significantly different in that it pierces anti-apparition wards. The mechanics of the magic are very similar, a form of translocation. Iya travel by a peculiar form of displacement magic — more similar to a phoenix, really.'

'Like a phoenix?' said the shopkeeper, a confused frown on her face. 'I don't know about that. Phoenixes are rather, erm, flashy when they do their thing.'

'The mechanics are similar. The only real difference is phoenixes displace through fire, and Iya displace through shadow.'

'If you say so, Lady Potter.'

Charissa thought she might have seen Mum roll her eyes.

With a finger, Charissa reached out, prodding at the paw hanging out of the cage a little. For a moment, the paw clenched around her finger, the skin at the pads a distinctly odd feeling she couldn't quite put words to, claws tightening enough to be noticeable but not painful. The little cat woke up, peering out at her with sharp, green-amber eyes. Then the paw retreated, the white bundle of fur standing up, curling his back with a long stretch and a yawn — Charissa had to hold back another embarrassing noise because _so adorable_ — and sat at the bars, peering out at the three of them, little head shifting back and forth as though looking for a better angle. Charissa glanced over at the shopkeeper. 'Can I...?'

The woman's eyes flicked to Mum, everything about her filled with an odd, hesitant caution. But she tapped the cage with her wand, the lock clicking open.

The little cat didn't resist at all. In seconds Charissa had him pulled out of the cage, cradled in her arms against her chest. Her fingers working at the back of his head, Charissa thought he might be the softest thing she'd ever touched, and it was really quite ridiculous how poofy and tiny and warm he was, and it was taking all she had to keep in those embarrassing noises because _so adorable_ , she was almost shaking with it. Which she thought was rather weird of herself, but she didn't really care at the moment. The cat didn't stay still very long. Purring so powerfully she could feel the vibration in her fingers and chest, he pulled himself up her robes a little bit, nuzzling into her neck, and then Charissa jumped when he started licking at her cheek, just in front of her ear, with a rough, scratchy tongue, and now she _completely failed_ to hold in that squealing moan of adoration, because he was just _so cute_ and she _couldn't take it anymore_ she thought her chest was going to _explode_ —

She glanced at Mum over the ball of fur.

A few minutes later, they were walking out, nine galleons lighter and one Iya heavier.


	3. First Year — August 31st

Charissa was breaking the rules, but she completely didn't care. It didn't really seem like anyone else did, so she guessed it didn't matter.

She settled into a new routine, though it was a slightly different routine. Instead of Mum coming home late, sometimes late enough Charissa was already in bed, she just didn't come home at all. Which made Charissa nervous, but she tried to ignore that as much as she could. It just seemed to make her brothers even more of a handful than usual, so it was even harder to get the privacy she needed to read through her new books than it would usually be. It didn't really help that Uncle Sirius, eternal bad influence that he was, only seemed to set them off more. More than once, Charissa had begged Uncle Peter, who usually came with, if there was anything he could do about him, but he just gave something of a helpless shrug every time. So Charissa just hid the best she could, only going on the offensive the rare occasions Dora dropped over.

Her brothers, especially Perry, were a little afraid of Dora. Which she really couldn't blame them for. Dora could be pretty scary when she felt like it.

But even when she was reading, she wasn't completely alone. She had a cat on her lap pretty much constantly. Charissa had named him before too long, though it had taken a little bit of mind changing. She decided almost immediately she was going to name him something dawn-related. Partially because he was all pretty and white, and partially as a reference to Mum's job — the traditional name of the Aurors was _Frāternitās Aurōrae_ , Aurora being the Roman goddess of the dawn. (Though Charissa had heard Mum and Aunt Alice call them _Sorōritās Aurōrae_ more often than not, she was halfway sure that was a joke. ) Her problem had mostly been in choosing a name that wasn't so outside British linguistic experience it was awkward, and finding a name that was, well, masculine. Shortly before disappearing for Magyarland, Mum had suggested Augí. The word was technically feminine, but the little Iya certainly didn't care, and most people didn't know Greek well enough to notice anyway, so she decided that was fine. Augí it is.

Augí could be somewhat hyperactive sometimes. She found pretty quickly that he really liked playing with newspaper. When Dad was done reading the _Prophet_ , she'd steal it, drag it across the floor, watching Augí savagely attack the thin parchment with tiny claws and teeth. She thought it was rather impressive how quickly he could move, darting from position to position so suddenly she could hardly see the states between, but she was pretty sure that was normal for cats, not anything magic. She was also pretty sure how intolerably adorable she found the whole thing had nothing to do with magic — he was just cute. And it was probably pretty mean of her how satisfying she found the sight of little Augí tearing apart a resigned-looking photograph of Minister Fudge, especially since she hardly knew the guy, but she couldn't really help not liking him. When Augí was in a hyperactive mood while Charissa was reading, she was pretty sure he went off bothering her brothers — she noticed a couple scratches on Linden's arm at one point, but she assumed he'd been pestering Augí, so she didn't bother apologizing for him. But when he wasn't in a hyperactive mood, he'd just snuggle up against her wherever she happened to be. Curled up on her lap, lying against her side. Once she'd been reading spread out face-down on her bed, and Augí had just climbed on and made himself comfortable on the small of her back. She could feel the purring all the way up to her chest. She read out loud to him whenever he was around — she knew he couldn't understand her, but it was fun to pretend.

The rule-breaking part of her routine was the occasional visits she was getting from Uncle Remus, who was starting to teach her a couple basic charms. Well, not "Uncle Remus" — since he'd be her Defence teacher, he'd said she should start getting used to calling him Professor Lupin. She could usually remember to do it out loud, but there was no way she'd be able to change how she thought it, she'd been doing it too long. But anyway, she technically wasn't supposed to be doing magic outside of school. But Remus had explained that how the Ministry tracked underage magic was geographical — they could tell where magic was being done, excluding blind spots here and there, not exactly who was doing it. If she were casting magic, these detection spells would assume it was one of the adults doing it, and no one would think to double check. And she was allowed to do it at all because, apparently, no one trusted her not to play around with magic now that she had a wand, so they'd decided she should at least be taught properly.

She'd feel perfectly comfortable admitting she hardly made any progress. For one thing, every time she got a simple charm right, she then wasted a lot of time just playing around with it. There was something indescribably fun about shooting sparks around, floating little objects around the air, even changing the colours of things, something she finally picked up with hardly a week left before the start of term. The next time Dora'd come by, Charissa had made something of a game of refusing to let Dora's hair stay the colour she wanted it to be. Which usually escalated into colour-change fights — basically tag, but with charming each other's hair and skin and clothes instead — which then rapidly descended into tickle fights, which was just a thing Dora did sometimes. At least Dora had the decency to shrink herself down to a kid more Charissa's size so the older girl didn't accidentally hurt her.

And, well, she really, _really_ liked setting things on fire, for some odd reason, but she'd been told she shouldn't do that without supervision. She might not be able to put it out if it got too big, after all.

But the other reason she was perfectly comfortable admitting that was because she was _eleven_. And only barely eleven. Mum had told her that children were very weak magically. They could do pretty impressive stuff sometimes with accidental magic, sure, but conscious magic? That was always way weaker. That would change eventually — around the time she would start needing certain charms Mum had already described to her, which were honestly pretty icky to think about. Around then, Mum said she would find herself growing increasingly more powerful, quickly enough that, if she payed close attention, she might actually notice it day to day. But until then, spells would be hard to pick up, and would be weak besides. Honestly, she thought Remus seemed surprised she could even do the colour-change one. It was really nothing to worry about.

She didn't hear from Mum a whole lot. She would send a letter over every once in a while. Charissa got the distinct impression that she was censoring herself to make them feel better — she couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was about the letters that made her think that, but the wording just didn't seem entirely appropriate considering she was basically at war right now. Somehow, Mum managed to wrangle dropping by on Perry's birthday, just a few days before Charissa would be leaving for Hogwarts. Perry's birthday gatherings were never as large or fancy as Charissa's — partially, she was sure, because she was the future Lady of the House, because a lot of people didn't want to come to two events like that so close to each other for various reasons, and this year in particular just because she'd been turning eleven, a much bigger deal than turning six — but it was still more people than Charissa was totally comfortable with. But Mum showing up really hadn't made her feel much better. Yes, she'd missed her. She'd been gone for over three weeks already, which Charissa was pretty sure was longer than she'd ever gone without seeing her mother before. And she guessed it was slightly reassuring to see that she was still, well, alive and uninjured.

But she seemed so _tired_.

All in all, the remainder of the summer slipped by remarkably quickly. Before she really knew what was happening, it seemed, they were flooing over to Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters. She didn't particularly like flooing — she always felt rather nauseous for the next hour or so — but they couldn't exactly apparate with their trunks floating along behind them. As she understood it, apparating with solid objects above a certain size, and not against the skin like clothes or something, was rather difficult. Their party was one of the larger ones wandering through the crowded platform. Herself, Dad, Linden and Perry, Sirius and Peter. Dora and her parents and Neville and his dad had met up with them before leaving too. Not his mum, just his dad — Aunt Alice had been sent to Magyarland along with Mum. Charissa had learned a long time ago that Aurors usually worked in groups of three, and Aunt Alice and Mum were in the same triad, along with Sir Dawlish.

Charissa was mostly silent during what she felt was an over-long goodbye. Yes, she was going off to Hogwarts, where she'd be away from home longer than she'd ever been before. But she thought everyone was making way bigger of a deal about it than they should. This was nowhere near as significant as when Mum left — Charissa wasn't going to _war_ or anything. It was just school. So she quietly put up with it. Trying not to exchange annoyed looks with Neville. Trying not to stare too much at Peter, who oddly enough looked to be on the edge of tears. Weird. Trying not to laugh too hard when Dora, who apparently thought the situation was as ridiculous as she did, collapsed onto her, bawling her head off about how she would miss her baby girl all alone so far away, then repeating the process on Neville just to drill in the point and make the adults even more annoyed at her. She did things like that a lot. Sometimes, Charissa couldn't help thinking that maybe Dora _tried_ to make people hate her. Which was a very weird thought, and she wasn't entirely sure how she should feel about having it.

But before long, Dora was leading her two younger cousins onto the garishly coloured train, all three of their trunks floating behind her, Augí's basket carefully balanced atop one — it had not been easy getting him to consent to getting into that thing in the first place. Dora looked in one compartment after the other, just taking a glance and moving on. Finally she stopped, tilting her head toward one of the compartments. 'I found the little Bones. You two wanna sit with her?'

Susan was plenty alright, she guessed. Charissa glanced at Neville for a second. He seemed perfectly okay with it. So she nodded.

And so Dora slammed the door open, sliding hard enough it spanged off the end of the track, nearly shaking itself loose. 'Hey, Little Miss Bones. My baby cousins are all awkward and shy, so I'm dropping them off with you.' Okay, was saying that really necessary? With a wave of her wand, Dora had their trunks floating up to the luggage racks, Augí nearly slipping off halfway up. 'Well,' she said, turning back to them, 'see you kids later. Good luck with Sorting and all that.'

Charissa considered saying something mean — or maybe yanking out her wand and changing the colour of something — but instead she just said, 'Don't get in too much trouble.'

'Oh, you know me.'

'Yeah, I do.'

Dora just grinned at her, an odd, crooked sort of grin that didn't exactly make Charissa _less_ concerned Dora was going to get a detention before classes even started. Again. 'Don't worry. I'll put up a heavy silencing charm first.' Before Charissa could ask, Dora was sashaying away.

Not that she really wanted to ask.

Stepping into the compartment she saw that, yes, Susan was there, her usual deep red plait today wrapped around her neck for some reason, but she wasn't alone. Sitting on the opposite bench was a girl Charissa's brain immediately labeled a muggleborn. Not that she particularly cared so much — it would be a bit hypocritical if she did, what with her pair of muggle grandparents — but it was just so obvious she couldn't help noticing it. Mostly, it was the clothes. Just so very, very muggle. Above the waist could maybe be passed off as more casual wear, she guessed — though, from the texture of the shirt she was wearing under her odd sleeveless jumper Charissa thought it wasn't _meant_ to be casual wear. It was the rest that mostly gave it away. Pleated skirt vaguely knee-length, long-strapped sandals. The only reason Charissa knew the terms to describe them even that well was because of Mum. There was the hair too, she guessed — any child of magical parents would have long ago been given or taught some way to manage that impressively frizzy mess — but the clothes were foreign enough it didn't really matter.

After names going all around — the muggleborn girl was named Hermione Granger — Charissa stretched up on her toes, and after a moment of struggling awkwardly at the limit of her reach finally dragged Augí out of his basket. For a second she hesitated, before taking the empty seat next to Granger. And was immediately met with a long moan of adoration. For a moment she considered being annoyed, but that would be rather hypocritical too — if she said she had never gotten all silly over Augí when she was sure she was alone she'd be lying. Eventually, the sound morphed into words. 'He's so cute,' Granger was saying, one hand reaching out toward the kitten in Charissa's lap.

Charissa didn't move fast enough. She'd noticed the last weeks that, to put it lightly, Augí didn't like other people. At least not most of the time. The only people he'd tolerated instantly so far were Mum, Dora, and Gwyneira. Everyone else got bites and scratches if they tried touching him. Dad and Linden and Perry and Remus he'd gotten used to after a little bit, and he didn't glare at Neville anymore, but he still wasn't exactly nice, either. As Granger's fingers reached the fur of his head, Charissa winced, anticipating the imminent hissing and scratching.

But she didn't hear any hissing. Instead, she heard, she felt, Augí _purring_. She stared down at the kitten, watching Granger, who was still muttering nonsense at him, scratch around his little ears. Augí just sat there, eyes contentedly shut, rumbling deep in his little chest. That was weird. Really weird. Yes, Augí was perfectly nice to Mum and Dora and Gwyneira, but he did little more than tolerate them, really. He'd certainly never purred at their touch. Charissa had no idea what to think about this.

From a glance at Neville's face, he didn't either.

Somewhat to her surprise, conversation was mostly focused on cats for a little while — which was a fine neutral topic, she guessed. Apparently Granger really liked cats, but her mother was allergic, so she'd never been allowed to have one. That just confused everyone else in the compartment. Charissa knew from talking to Mum that non-magical cats could cause unpleasant physical effects in certain people just by being around them, but that was one thing that had long ago been bred out of the cats mages kept. She considered pointing that out — especially since Susan and Neville just looked so lost, and Granger lost by how lost they were — but she guessed it didn't matter a whole lot.

They were still talking about that when the compartment door slid open again. The train hadn't started moving yet, so Charissa was expecting someone just looking for somewhere to sit, but this was not who she had been expecting to see. Draco's eyes wandered around the compartment for a few seconds, focusing an instant longer on Granger than the other two — probably, like Charissa, noticing at once she was muggleborn. Then he turned to her. 'Cousin.'

He always started conversations like that. It was weird. She debated whether or not to follow his silly little protocol for a moment before deciding it wasn't worth the headache she'd get from his mother if she bothered him too much. Might as well play it safe. 'Cousin.'

'Our compartment isn't quite full, so I was checking to make sure you had a decent place to sit.' Charissa didn't at all miss how his eyes flicked to Granger as he said _decent_.

She decided to ignore it, but what she really needed right now was a nice excuse to say no. Maybe she would get lucky if she asked, 'Who else is there?'

He looked at her for a moment with an odd, blank look on his face, as though surprised she would bother asking. 'Nott. Bulstrode. Parkinson. Greengrass was about to join us, I think.' Neither did Charissa miss Neville's look of distaste at the listed names.

Well, there was her out. Daphne she was perfectly fine with, and while Millie could be annoying they could at least get through a civil conversation. But, really, Draco shouldn't even have to ask. 'Come on, Draco, you know Pansy _hates_ me. If I go over there we'll end up screaming at each other before we've even left London, and that's not really what I'm in the mood for right now.'

The slightest of frowns compressed Draco's forehead. 'Surely it couldn't be that bad.'

'Remember Pansy's tenth birthday?' Draco nodded. 'Remember how my family kinda got kicked out early?' He hesitated for a second, then nodded again. 'Did you ever ask why?' He hesitated again, now looking a bit unsure he really wanted to know, but he shook his head anyway. 'Well, she was kinda telling me off for coming with my Mum, you know. Said something about her getting everything _dirty_ , if you catch my meaning. It's possible we were kicked out because I did something in response that was very unladylike and required a few healing charms afterward.'

Draco gave her another look of disbelief at that. She didn't think it was entirely _unamused_ disbelief, but still disbelief. 'You hit her.'

'I mean, it's _possible_.' She suddenly realised she was talking like Dora. Huh.

'Well, we wouldn't want a repeat of that, would we?' Despite his air of cool haughtiness, Charissa saw what she thought might be the barest traces of a smirk on his face. Not sure why, but it didn't really matter a whole lot, she guessed. 'I'll see you later then, Cousin.'

'Bye, Draco.' And he was gone.

'That was your cousin?'

Charissa turned back to Granger, blinking at her for a few seconds. The surprise on her voice was just so strong she wasn't entirely sure what to think. 'Erm, yes?'

'But...' She was frowning, just staring at Charissa. 'Isn't black hair genetically dominant? I mean, it's not like it's _completely_ dominant or anything — hair colour isn't even a Mendelian trait — but the chances of someone with black hair and someone having hair that light of a blond being cousins are really, really low.'

It took all Charissa had not to give Neville and Susan a look. What kind of look she wasn't sure, but definitely a look. 'Well, Draco's hair colour isn't natural, I don't think. I'm almost positive he and Lord Malfoy both do something with their hair. Potion, maybe, or just a charm, I guess.'

'Oh, well, I guess that makes—' Granger broke off again, blinking off into the distance. Now Charissa took the opportunity of the other girl's distraction to glance at Neville and Susan — she could see instantly they were trying not to smile too much. 'That boy was nobility.'

Once again, Charissa had no idea what to think about this. 'Yes? His father's Lord Malfoy.'

'And he's your cousin.'

'Yes? I mean, through his mother, but yeah.'

Granger hesitated for a moment, then said, 'Are you nobility too, then?'

Charissa blinked at that, then glanced back at Neville and Susan. They didn't seem to have any better idea of what was going on in Granger's head than she did. 'Well, yes. All three of us are, actually.'

'Really.'

It was Susan who answered, with her usual light smile and friendly tone she seemed to use with pretty much everyone. 'Yes, all three of us are from Noble Houses. I'm from House Bones — my father is the Lord of the House. Neville's from House Longbottom — his grandmother is the Lady of his House. And Charissa's dad is Lord Potter.'

Granger blinked at them for a few seconds, eyes flicking back and forth. Finally, she shook her head and said, 'Sorry, I just had no idea. I hadn't touched our history text yet, focusing on magic stuff, so I didn't even know magical Britain _had_ nobility. First witch in the family, you see.'

'We noticed,' Charissa said with a little shrug. Granger raised an eyebrow at her for that, so she added, 'Your clothes kinda give it away.'

Neville said, 'The accent, too.' He shrugged when both Charissa and Granger gave him a look. 'Muggle English is usually way less Celtic-sounding. Does depend a little on where they live, though. I guess you might not notice that as much, what with your Mum and all.'

Which just made Granger give her _another_ look so, a little reluctantly, she said, 'Yeah, my mum is muggleborn.'

That seemed to be enough for Granger on that topic, and just as the train started moving they slipped into talking about something else. Or, to be more accurate, _everything_ else. And, to be completely honest, Granger was probably taking up a good sixty percent of the conversation. The girl could really talk. Words coming so quickly and near together Charissa wasn't sure how she was getting enough air, bouncing around from one topic to the next so suddenly she could hardly see how the two were connected to each other. Susan was keeping up with her pretty well, but Charissa and Neville mostly just gave each other baffled looks. Not that Charissa minded too much — she actually thought it was kinda cute, reminded her of Dora when she had too much coffee. It was just a little much for her.

The lopsided conversation had probably been going on for over an hour before Granger suddenly asked them what house they thought they were going to be in at Hogwarts. The three of them answered instantly and almost simultaneously — Susan with _Hufflepuff_ , Charissa and Neville both with _Gryffindor_. Granger blinked again for a second — she seemed to do that whenever something put her a little off-balance — before asking, 'That sounded rather certain.'

Neville shrugged, saying, 'People in the same family are usually in the same house. House Longbottom — along with House Potter, actually — are almost always in Gryffindor. Both of my parents and both of her parents were. And three of my grandparents, actually.'

'Which is more than me,' Charissa said. 'I just have Grandpa Charlus, who's the Potter. My Grandma Dorea was a Slytherin, and my other two grandparents obviously weren't Gryffindors either. I still expect I'll be in Gryffindor, though.'

Susan said, 'It's a little more complicated for me. Mum and Auntie Amelia were both in Ravenclaw. My dad was a Hufflepuff, though, and House Bones is almost always Hufflepuff, so I'll most likely be in Hufflepuff, I think.'

'Well, I hope I'll be seeing you two in Gryffindor, then.'

Charissa raised an eyebrow at that, turned to glance at Neville — their surprise was in sync enough they managed to glance at each other at the same time. 'Erm, why?'

'Oh, well, I told you about how Professor McGonagall told me all about magic, and brought my parents and me to Diagon Alley and all, right?' Granger didn't wait for anyone to confirm, just ploughed straight on ahead. 'She seemed quite a fine person to me, and she told me all about Gryffindor, and Professor Dumbledore, and everything, and I just thought it seemed a rather nice group of people to be associated with.'

'Well.' Charissa glanced over at Susan and Neville again. Neville seemed just as thrown as her, but Susan just shrugged. 'Are you sure that's really such a good reason to want one house over another? I mean, sure, the High Enchanter's great and all, but he's the Headmaster, so it doesn't really matter one way or another what house he was in. And, you know, it's the people in the house _currently_ that matter, since they're the people you're going to see every day, who you're going to know best after you graduate. Would make more sense to be with the people you have more in common with, yeah?'

'You don't think I would fit in Gryffindor, is what you're saying.' She looked almost offended at the suggestion. Just what did McGonagall tell her?

'I was thinking Ravenclaw, actually.' She glanced at the other two. 'Right?' They both nodded, Susan with a somewhat crooked smile on her face.

Still looking a bit reproachful, Granger said, 'You three were so sure about what house you're going to be in.'

Susan shrugged. 'We were saying what house we _expect_ to be in. That's not necessarily the same thing as which we would _want_ to be in.'

'Well, which one would you want to be in, then?' Again, the three of them answered instantly and almost simultaneously, though only one of them said the same thing as last time — both Susan and Neville said _Hufflepuff_ , and Charissa said _Ravenclaw_.

'Actually,' Charissa said, 'I guess it's possible I could go into Ravenclaw, now that I think about it. My mum was a Hatstall. She said it couldn't decide whether to put her in Gryffindor or Ravenclaw, before finally picking Gryffindor. So I guess I could go to Ravenclaw. Actually, I remember hearing the same thing happened to McGonagall too.'

Granger frowned at that. 'Professor McGonagall almost went to Ravenclaw?'

'That's what I heard. I know she was a Hatstall, but maybe people only assume Ravenclaw was the other option. Because, you know, she's so smart.'

From the expression on Granger's face, she wasn't entirely sure what to think about that.

Those must be quite the stories McGonagall filled her head with.

* * *

She knew it was probably a weird thing to be thinking, but Charissa just wanted this to be over with already.

It's not like any of this was surprising. She'd heard enough stories about Hogwarts by now that, even if she'd never seen any of this before, it was still familiar, if that made sense. The trip across the lake on the boats wasn't surprising, the castle stretching regnant across its overhang at the edge of the water wasn't surprising, nothing about the Great Hall was surprising. It was rather pretty, all those candles floating against the backdrop of starry sky, but it wasn't _surprising_. Most of the first years around her wore various expressions of wonder or nervousness, but personally she mostly just felt hungry. She hadn't eaten since before leaving the house, and that was a while ago now.

So she waited impatiently as the Hat paced through its song, trying not to show any external signs of how completely uninterested she was. Mum was right — the Sorting Hat wasn't any sort of musician at all. The music was really rather flat, some of the rhymes a bit questionable, and it couldn't even stay on metre. Not at all impressive. But finally McGonagall started calling off names, and this could finally get going.

Susan was the second person called up, so it was pretty much immediately that Charissa saw something that actually _was_ surprising. After probably two minutes of deliberation, significantly longer than the girl before her, Susan was sent off to Gryffindor. _Gryffindor_? Charissa had totally not expected that. She'd been certain Susan would be in Hufflepuff. Yes, Susan's mum and aunt had been in Ravenclaw, and she thought she remembered her mum's family being mostly Gryffindors, but both of them were rather, erm, _intense_ women. Her aunt especially — Dame Amelia Bones was one of the more celebrated Aurors in recent memory, and she could almost even be scary sometimes. Susan wasn't anything like that at all. One of the gentlest, warmest people Charissa knew, actually. She had no idea how to feel about this.

By the look on her face as she stumbled to the raucously applauding Gryffindor table, neither did Susan.

Many of the following names she recognised, even if she didn't know the people they belonged to personally. Terry Boot, going to Ravenclaw immediately after Susan, was from a minor Noble House. Unsurprisingly, Millie Bulstrode went to Slytherin. Tracey Davis went to Slytherin, which actually did surprise her a little bit — House Davis did almost always go to Slytherin, yes, but the Hat usually spared the halfbloods and muggleborns the experience. Apparently there was a Goldstein in this year, off to Ravenclaw. And then Granger was called up.

Maybe this girl was just naturally hyperactive, or she got jumpy when she was nervous, because she rocketed over to the stool so fast her leftover momentum nearly tipped the thing over when she sat. She jammed the Hat onto her head so hard Charissa wouldn't have been surprised if she'd ripped the thing open.

So it was with greater contrast than usual when a full minute passed without an announcement from the Hat.

Then another.

And another.

Looking closely, Charissa noticed Granger's face was tightening a little, into the slightest of grimaces. Mum had said the sort of mental magic used by the Hat to Sort the new students wasn't the safest nor most pleasant thing in the world. The intimate mental connection to the pseudo-consciousness of the Hat involved a physical dissociation with the person's own body — which was why people never spoke what they were saying to the Hat out loud — and that wasn't exactly something human minds were meant to do. For one thing, it messed with the person's perception of time — Mum had been under there for nearly six minutes, but she said it had felt more like two. The short amount of time the average person spent under it was perfectly fine, and most people never noticed. But Mum had been a Hatstall, and she'd said by the end she'd had a dreadful headache. It looked like Granger was already starting to get one.

And the fourth minute passed. Now the Hall was filled with curious muttering, neighbors wondering aloud to each other exactly what was going on in there. Charissa started to think, a little awkwardly, that this was probably her fault. If she hadn't questioned Granger's desire to go to Gryffindor earlier, this might not have happened.

Shortly after Charissa assumed the fifth minute must have passed — she doubted she was keeping track perfectly accurately — Professor Dumbledore said, in a whisper that carried through the whole room, 'Hatstall.'

Maybe thirty seconds after that, the Hat finally made a decision. And Hermione Granger became a Ravenclaw. Charissa watched her as she stumbled down toward the proper table, the girl looking oddly shaky through the distorting fabric of her robes. She looked almost to be in tears, but Charissa thought that might be from the post-Hatstall headache more than anything else — the way she grabbed for a pitcher of water the second she sat down might be evidence for that.

The rest of the names went more or less smoothly. Daphne went off to Slytherin — a little sad, if unsurprising. The Hat hesitated for nearly two minutes before putting Neville in Hufflepuff. Good, she was pretty sure he'd be happier there. Charissa started a little when the name MacDougal was called — she recognized it as a minor Noble House, but hadn't known they had a daughter her age. Draco, unsurprisingly, went to Slytherin. Looked so bloody pleased about it too. Pansy also went straight to Slytherin, so at least Charissa wouldn't have to deal with her too much. There was a little more muttering shortly after, when a pair of identical twins were split into different houses. Usually twins went to the same house — not necessarily, but usually — so she guessed it was a bit odd.

And then it was her turn. A few seconds later, she was at the front of the room, ignoring as best she could all the people staring at her. Sat down, picked up the Hat, ignoring the tingling that suddenly ignited in her fingers. And put the ratty little thing on.

As the world slowed around her, she felt a voice. Not _heard_ exactly, much like her wand whenever she touched the thing, a whispering directly into her thoughts instead of her ears. _I suppose it is time for another Potter, isn't it._

Charissa tried to open her mouth to respond, but her muscles didn't seem to be working. So she decided to just think her thoughts in the form of words as powerfully as she could. That'd probably be enough to communicate. _Well, you've got two more coming after me soon._

 _Yes, I'm seeing that now._ The Hat must be going through her memories, she realised. That was...mildly disturbing, now that she thought about it. _James Potter and Lily Evans, never would have guessed that one. Pardon the intrusion. I just like seeing what the students I've Sorted go on to after leaving these walls._

She wasn't entirely sure she liked the surprise on the Hat's voice — er, thoughts — saying her parents' names together. _Well, now that you've slaked your curiosity, I guess you're sending me right off to Gryffindor, then._

 _Gryffindor?_ The Hat seemed oddly confused by that. _What makes you so sure you'll be going to Gryffindor?_

Charissa had a very odd feeling about this. _I just kind of assumed I would be. Both of my parents did. My family going back forever._

 _I'll admit, your father was very much an easy decision, but your mother and I debated her options thoroughly before finally putting her in Gryffindor. I'm still not **entirely** confident now that was the right decision. And, yes, your father's father's family have long been dominated by Gryffindors, but your father's **mother's** family are mostly found in another house entirely._

Despite the fact that Charissa knew she was still sitting perfectly still, on the stool in the Great Hall, she felt she was suddenly falling. With a sudden jerk, much like that time about two years ago, when her father had been trying to get her into quidditch — again — and an awkward catch of a quaffle had shoved her right off her broom. Far enough to break her arm, actually, but Mum had fixed it practically before she'd even noticed. The feeling of falling managed to distract her from the growing tingles across her skin, the weight building inside her head.

 _Slytherin_. The Hat was talking about _Slytherin_. Grandma Dorea had been in Slytherin, like pretty much every Black ever. Exceptions were very, very rare. There was Uncle Sirius, who was a Gryffindor, and Dora, who was a Hufflepuff, but having two non-Slytherins even that close in age was practically unheard of. There was no way the Hat was about to put her in Slytherin. Was there?

 _Calm down, child. That's exactly what we're here to discuss._

 _You can't possibly be putting me in Slytherin._

 _Really?_ The Hat sounded strangely amused, but a practised kind of amusement, as though it heard this a lot. It probably did, actually. _You assumed you would be going to Gryffindor because of your family, but you are just as much a Black as you are a Potter. You are even named for two Blacks — Charis and Dorea, both of whom I put into Slytherin._

 _Like that means anything!_

 _But your surname does?_

Charissa had absolutely nothing to say to that, so she just sat silently. Well, _more_ silently. She would have crossed her arms if she could, but her muscles still weren't working. It was getting harder to ignore how much heavier her head was growing.

 _Would you really be so opposed to joining your cousin in Slytherin?_ The Hat almost seemed disappointed.

 _Ignoring my own feelings on the matter, I really don't think they'd exactly welcome me there. And not just because I'm a Potter. Though I guess you don't really care about sending halfbloods off to be tormented anymore._

In a somewhat severe tone, the Hat whispered, _I do what I think is best for all involved. Young Davis's situation is more complicated than you are assuming._

Charissa didn't even bother being surprised that the Hat knew she was talking about Tracey. The thing was in her head. Speaking of her head, _Can we start getting to the point? My head is starting to hurt._

 _I'm just curious why it is you feel you are so well-suited to Gryffindor. Besides your family history, that is. I'll tell you a secret, young Charissa Potter: the traits by which I Sort people into one house or another are often not the traits that house is known for._

She waited a second for the Hat to go on, but her head was really starting to hurt, like there was something building inside that was just too big for her skull, so she really didn't have the patience to stall for too long. _What do you pick Gryffindors by, then?_

 _In a word, assurance. Gryffindors are confident in who they are and what they believe. Such confidence certainly does make the acts of heroism and bravery and such Gryffindors are so famous for more accessible, but it is not that tendency itself that I Sort by. And, if I were to be completely honest, I would have to say this assurance isn't necessarily a good thing._

 _Alright, I get it, assurance, then. What's your point?_

 _My point, Miss Potter, is do you believe this assurance is something you have? Do you know who you are? how you feel about anything or anyone? what is objectively true? what is right or wrong? Are you completely confident in any of it?_

Charissa couldn't stand it anymore. She thought she might be crying, but really she couldn't be sure. All she could feel was that pressure in her head, growing stronger and stronger and _stronger_ , so heavy she could barely think, her skull splitting at ears and nose. She tried to let out a groan of frustration, but the Hat still had her frozen. _**Fine** , then! Just put me in Slytherin and get it over with, already!_

 _My dear Miss Potter, what makes you think I was ever going to put you in Slytherin?_

 _I really, really want to set you on fire right now._

 _Yes, I see that. You do like your fire. And, look at that, you already know multiple spells that would set me on fire just fine. Isn't that interesting?_

Charissa figured out what the Hat was implying even as it split open to inform their audience she was a Ravenclaw.

* * *

 _Augí — pronounced something like "ahv-gee", because modern Greek is weird like that._

* * *

 _Yeah, about Charissa's Sorting... Yeah._

 _Oh, and about Susan and Neville being in different houses — **of course** they are. Susan and Neville are rather different than they were in canon. Because, you know, their experience has been totally different than the canon versions. Partially because they were actually raised by their parents, funny thought._

 _And as far as Hermione goes, allow me to quote from Less Wrong's Methods of Rationality —_

" In what weird alternative universe would that girl _not_ be Sorted into Ravenclaw? If Hermione Granger didn't go to Ravenclaw then there was no good reason for Ravenclaw House to exist. "

 _Exactly._

 _Until next time,_

 _~Wings_


	4. First year — Early September

_Okay, everyone. Because of worldbuilding reasons I was nerdy enough to think of, but that would take too long to explain, the in-universe orthography used by magical people is somewhat different than our English. Specifically, they have two extra letters in their alphabet — Þ þ ("thorn") and Ð ð ("eth"). They're both basically a "th" sound. There is a difference but most native English speakers can't really distinguish them. I'll only be using them in directly quoted text — say, in letters — or in narration and dialog only for words that aren't part of normal English speech. With the exception of Slytherin (which would be "Slyðerin") because you're all used to that word already._

 _If it's just too hard to read, tell me and I'll edit it out and not use it in future. I'll be totally honest and say I have no idea what would be easy for other people to read. I'm enough of a nerd I hardly even notice._

* * *

Charissa ended up being put in a room with Granger. She wasn't entirely sure how she felt about this.

The Ravenclaw dorm rooms weren't set up the same way as the Gryffindor ones — which she only knew because her parents and uncles must have described the Gryffindor side of things to her a billion times. They were in a similar tower, one year on each floor, but instead of one big circular room, the Ravenclaw girls were instead divided between two rooms. She immediately noticed the room was too large and the wrong shape for the tower—she was sure these wide, hexagonal walls would never, ever fit in the space available — but architecture did that sometimes. The room was done in soft blues, blacks, and whites, occasional bronze accents here and there. Furniture sat flush against the walls, alternating wall to wall — a bed flanked by dressers on either side, a wide desk with a cushioned chair at the next, another bed and pair of dressers at the next, then a desk, then a bed, then a desk. By the time they arrived, Augí was already curled up on one of the beds, his light fur a sharp contrast against the black sheets, so she guessed that one was hers.

The three of them — herself, Granger, and the MacDougal girl — decided they should go deasil. That is, standing facing their bed, their desk would be to their right. A glance around at where the other two girls were organising their things, she immediately noticed they were arranged alphabetically going deasil too. She wondered if they'd done that on purpose.

And the reason she wasn't entirely sure how she felt about Granger being her roommate was because, well, Granger still hadn't seemed to run out of steam. She was still talking and talking and talking. The girl had looked really shaken after her experience with the Hat — which Charissa suspected had somehow made her hair even more ridiculously frizzy — and had hardly said two words back in the Great Hall. Well, she seemed to be over that. _Wow_ , could she talk. Charissa hadn't ever seen such a natural talent for aimless rambling. This girl had Dora topped.

Before she was simply too sleepy to write, she settled at her desk. She should really send off a letter to her parents as soon as possible. She wasn't entirely sure why, it just felt like something she should be doing. But now that she thought about it, sending a letter to her parents was a bit...complicated. Mum was still in Magyarland. Not only was that something of a trip for an owl, she wasn't entirely sure owls could even reach her at the moment. Mum was probably warded, wherever she was. Oh, well. She could tell Dad anyway. Not that he'd be extremely pleased about her being in Ravenclaw, but there wasn't a lot she could do about that.

Stupid floppy piece of trash.

She had no idea how to word this letter. No idea at all. After some minutes stumbling through the thing, she read it back to herself, and realised she sounded a bit...defensive. Not too extremely so, but it was obvious. But she didn't really know what to do about that. Partially because, well, she _did_ expect Dad to take it badly, if only in jest. And this wasn't really something she wanted him to make fun of her for. She still had the headache, for one thing — apparently she'd been sitting there even longer than Granger, even though it hadn't really felt like it, long enough she'd had a nosebleed when the Hat finally released her — so she wasn't exactly in a mood to be amused by the whole thing. And, well. At least she wasn't in Slytherin. Despite the Hat implying it hadn't at all been considering it, she had a nasty suspicion that that had been the whole point. She was a Hatstall not because she was between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, but _Slytherin_ and Ravenclaw.

No, she wasn't sure how to feel about that either.

So, if she sounded a bit defensive, and maybe even a bit confrontational, that was just too bad for Dad, wasn't it? She'd had quite enough of this Sorting business today, thank you very much. She really just wanted to go to sleep and forget about it. Granger had the decency to stop rambling when they all got changed for bed — though she seemed more interested in reading some book she'd pulled out of her trunk than actually sleeping, but close enough.

But even in the near silence, it still took Charissa what felt like hours to fall asleep.

* * *

Charissa very quickly decided she was glad she'd gotten a bit of a head start. It made the first few weeks of class far easier than they could have been. The first time they brewed anything in Potions, Professor Bourne, supposedly a descendant of the more famous Phineas Bourne, absolutely gushed over her cauldron — the magically-neutral slop wasn't supposed to actually do anything, just turn a certain color and consistency if done correctly, which was apparently difficult to do. A couple other Ravenclaws had done roughly as well as she had, so she wasn't sure what Professor Bourne was being so silly about. Charms class, where they'd only learned a few simple spells so far — the wand sparks she could already do, and a couple variations on _illūcē_ — was equally easy. Unfortunately, they were put in Charms class with the Gryffindors, which included Ronald. He insisted on sitting next to her pretty much every class. His Ravenclaw jokes weren't any better than she anticipated Dad's to be, just making him more annoying than usual.

To be completely honest, if there was one advantage to not being in Gryffindor, it would be not having to deal with Ron Weasley nearly as much.

But since she had two classes that she was starting out a little bit ahead in, that meant she could more comfortably settle into the routine, get her bearings a little better in the other subjects. Defence and History and Theory were all reading, at least for the moment, so she quickly read forward until she had a comfortable buffer. Brīþwn was similar in that it didn't require doing actual magic, but it did require her sitting with a couple of the Ravenclaws for hours echoing the unfamiliar vowels back and forth until they could actually make the sounds correctly every time. Unlike some of her classmates she could get the _y_ and _w_ right pretty consistently from the start, but the _ī_ and _ē_ were a pain. The only class that required any magic so far that she hadn't learned any of was Transfiguration. Even simple transfigurations could go dangerously wrong, so Uncle Remus hadn't taught her any. So, unsurprisingly, Transfiguration held the only practical lessons the first weeks in which someone consistently accomplished the given task quicker and better than herself.

That someone was universally Hermione Granger. The muggleborn girl was rapidly eating away at her advantage in Potions and Charms as well, and she'd started _miles_ ahead in the theory-based classes.

Not that Charissa particularly cared so much. She didn't need to be the best in the class — simply near the top was just fine. As long as she was getting Os she didn't really see how it mattered if Granger was beating her in every single class. She could have it.

Charissa had other things to worry about anyway.

Just a couple days into the first week, she got a reply from her father to her letter she'd sent about getting in Ravenclaw. It didn't exactly surprise her. The whole thing was Dad going on and on about how disappointed he was that she was in Ravenclaw, but he would somehow soldier on past this blow to his fatherly pride. He was joking, of course — he didn't actually care that she wasn't in Gryffindor. Okay, he might care _some_ , but he was definitely exaggerating how much he cared just for, she didn't know, some misplaced sense of ironic humour. She knew that perfectly well.

But that didn't mean his response didn't make her _annoyed_.

For long seconds, sitting at the table for breakfast, she stared at the letter, trying to decide exactly how to respond to it. She finally decided she wasn't going to respond to it at all. She turned around on the bench, accidentally kicking Morag in the side as she went, a wave and tap with her wand over and against the letter with a muttered, ' _Altum levētur_.' A few gentle upward flicks brought the parchment floating between the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables. She glanced both ways quick to make sure no one was coming or going. With thoughts of heat and light, her wrist twitching in a fluttering jab she found oddly intuitive, she snarled, ' _Īnflammet_.'

The letter was consumed in a flash of orange flame.

Charissa spun back around and focused on her breakfast, ignoring the slew of curious looks turned her way.

She got an apology from Dad a couple days later. That one she actually responded to. Didn't want him to feel all bad about it for too long, now that he actually did. Besides, she wasn't angry anymore by then.

But that wasn't even close to the worst thing that happened the first two weeks.

Thursday of the second week, she got a note early in the evening telling her to come to Professor Flitwick's office. For a few seconds, she just stared at the slip of parchment, trying to remember if she'd done anything worthy of getting in trouble. Burning Dad's letter was notable, but that had been a week ago now, and she hadn't done anything too indicative of pyromania since. Well, okay, yesterday in Defence she'd set on fire a simple golem Uncle Remus had conjured that she was supposed to be practicing a basic stinging jinx on, but the thing was kinda scary, and she'd panicked. She didn't think that counted. Far as she knew, she hadn't done much of anything that would justify this being a disciplinary meeting. An academic one didn't make sense either, since they were only _almost_ two weeks in, and while they hadn't had very many marked assignments yet, everything they'd done so far she'd gotten Os in.

Hmm.

But at the appointed time, she slipped out of the Ravenclaw common room, and headed over toward Flitwick's office, which was really only a few metres down the hall. She was a little surprised to see the door was propped halfway open. Should she just walk in? She peeked around the door, looking inside. 'Professor?'

Oh, wow, fun room. There was the usual long desk important people tended to have, three puffy-looking chairs arranged around, surrounded by thoroughly occupied bookshelves covering nearly every spare segment of wall — all of it, save the two chairs on her side of the desk, shrunk in proportion to the owner's height. But the ceiling wasn't flat as it was in most rooms she'd seen of the castle, but rose above her in a dome. The entire surface glowed with a deep blue light, lines of silver sketching out what Charissa instantly recognised as runes, lines gathering for a time into words only to disperse, and gather into different words somewhere else. Sumerian, she thought, though she wasn't sure. She couldn't read a word of it, after all. But even if it was meaningless to her, it was very pretty.

'Ah,' came the high voice of her Charms Professor, 'yes, Miss Potter. Come on in.'

Charissa always felt a little odd around Professor Flitwick. Not necessarily in a bad way — though she did know he was once an international duelling champion, so he could probably turn her into paste before she could blink, that wasn't really so different from most of the adults in her life. No, she just wasn't used to being taller than the adults around her. Professor Flitwick wasn't exactly old. Only, what, fifty? Somewhere around there? Old enough that he could be a respected Master of Charms, but young enough his hair was still dark, face mostly unlined. But that was definitely older than herself, and older than her parents, too. But he was just so _tiny_. He barely came up to her shoulder. It was weird.

But he probably could turn her to paste before she could blink, so she did her best not to notice.

Somewhat to her surprise, Flitwick actually came around the desk, sitting at one of the chairs on this side — he transfigured it a couple inches lower for himself — so they were sitting without the desk between them, their knees only a couple inches apart. There was a rather intense look in his dark eyes, a somewhat stern set about his lips. 'Now, first, Miss Potter,' he started, his voice low and soft. 'I want to start by assuring you there is nothing to fear. Everything is being worked out, and it's all going to be fine.'

Okay, now she was getting a little worried.

'You know your mother was sent to Magyarland, right?'

Okay, now she was getting a _lot_ worried. She didn't quite trust her voice at the moment, her throat already tight with dread, so she just nodded.

'You were told what she was doing there?'

She forced herself to swallow. 'Fighting dark wizards.'

'Yes, a Dark Lord named Éjbevissza and his followers. I was told that early this morning they managed to corner Éjbevissza and the last of his lieutenants. Your mother engaged in what was apparently a lengthy duel with Éjbevissza himself.'

Oh, no. She'd known this was going to happen. She had. She hadn't wanted to think about it, but she'd known. Her fingers tangled up in her robes to stop her hands from shaking, she had to try a few times before she could get the words out. 'Is she— Is she okay?'

Professor Flitwick gave her what she thought was probably supposed to be a reassuring smile. She couldn't see very well at the moment, so she wasn't entirely sure. 'After Éjbevissza fell, she was taken to Saint Mungo's.'

'Oh, no—'

'No, no.' Flitwick's hand was suddenly on her knee, clenched tightly enough she could feel his pointy fingernails through the cloth. 'It's alright, Miss Potter. She's fine. I was told that, in the instant before she ended the duel, she was hit with a curse of some kind—' Charissa completely failed to stop the whimper from leaving her throat. '— _but_ , the Healers called in an expert on dark magic. The master alchemist Severus Snape, who I believe you know. He did some sort of healing ritual, I don't know exactly what. Probably illegal,' he added in an undertone, 'not that anyone cares under the circumstances. But it worked, and she'll be fine. The Healers said they'll probably be releasing her in two or three days.'

She was fine. She was _fine_. Charissa forced in a long breath, trying to make it as smooth and even as possible, which really didn't go all that well. She'd gotten pretty close to crying there, and her breath was trying to reduce to shudders. She took a few more breaths, each calmer than the last, bit by bit. Still staring at her hands, she said, 'Can I go see her?' Hadn't done quite too good a job of forcing herself back to normal, she guessed — her voice was a bit wavery, but at least it was understandable.

'I don't think so.' Flitwick cut her off before she could argue with, 'I was told by the Healers that she'll need to be kept in isolation for the next twelve hours or so. Something about the healing magic Master Snape used — being exposed to other sources of magic for a while afterward can do peculiar things. That, and your father said you should stay here.'

Charissa's immediate response to that was a sudden flash of tight anger deep in her chest, which Flitwick must have noticed. 'You can't see her right now anyway, and once you can she's going to be out of hospital just a day or two later. Your father anticipates her dropping by Hogsmeade sometime next week, and you'll see her then. But until that day, her post isn't being redirected anymore, so I suggest you take a moment to write to her.'

But—

Well...

Well, _fine_. If Dad wanted her to stay here, fine, she would. Not like she could actually see Mum right now anyway. Fine. She would just...do that. Write a letter. Okay. 'I'll just—' Charissa cleared her throat — her voice was still refusing to cooperate, which was really just annoying. 'I'll go write that letter.'

'Alright. If you need anything, Miss Potter, my door is always open.'

She mumbled out a _thank you_ of some kind, picked up her bag, and made her escape.

At first, she intended to go back to the common room, but she hesitated halfway there. No, she didn't really feel like going there at the moment. There was that whole Sorting business that she was honestly still kind of annoyed about, and in her letter she'd probably be telling Mum about that, and doing that in Ravenclaw territory would probably just make her more annoyed. Besides, she suspected she probably looked like she'd just been crying, if only a little bit, and if she went there, people would probably bother her about why. Which she didn't feel like dealing with at the moment. Which meant she needed to go somewhere with surfaces convenient for writing and where she wouldn't be bothered.

To the library, then.

Hogwarts had a very impressive library, she had to hand them that. Tall, arched ceilings, angled sunlight leaking in through stained glass, shelf after shelf after shelf, each crammed to capacity and stretching far above her head, interspersed with tables and chairs here and there. Mum had said before there were few collections of knowledge in the world greater than the library at Hogwarts — the libraries in Raẖqācit and Agad immediately came to mind. Of course, not all that knowledge is open for students to just paw around in whenever they want. The Ministry had something of a habit of giving tomes describing magic of questionable legality to Hogwarts, to be stored safely in the Restricted Section. She personally thought it was a little odd calling it a _section_. It had to be nearly half the volume of the entire library by now.

Charissa was going to find herself a table in a quiet corner, sit alone to write, but she got a little distracted by something. Well, some _one_. Granger, sitting by herself at a table. At least, Charissa was pretty sure it was Granger. She seemed to be asleep, the corner of a book barely peeking out of the mass of brown fuzz covering a portion of the table. Charissa hesitated for a moment, considering her options.

Oh, well. Granger shouldn't really be sleeping right now anyway. Especially not in the library. _Especially_ not using a book for a pillow. If Madam Pince saw that she'd probably disembowel her.

* * *

The first thing Hermione heard when she started awake was a sharp, noisy snort. Hopefully no one had been too close by — since she'd felt it as well as heard it, that had been _her_ snorting like that. Blech.

Hermione didn't have to look up to know where she was. She always remembered every moment up to the one she'd fallen asleep, so she always knew exactly where she'd been when she'd fallen asleep — unless one of her parents moved her, anyway. She'd fallen asleep in the library, reading _The Decline of Pagan Magic_. She'd have to flip back a page or two to make sure she remembered everything — when this happened, her short term memory never made it to long term, so she just had to reread the last little bit. A glance at the page number in a corner, a comparison in her head with the last thing she could remember, scanning the page, and she realised she had only lost a page or so this time. That wasn't too big of a deal, she could just—

Oh, wait. She'd been woken up by someone. There was a bag of silky black cloth, the sort the more wealthy magical people used, sitting on the desk that hadn't been there before. Now that she thought about it, she was pretty sure she had been woken up by a noise of some sort. Someone must have dropped that hard enough to wake her up. A glance up suggested that person had been Charissa Potter.

Honestly, Charissa made her a little uncomfortable. Well, okay, _most_ witches and wizards made her a little uncomfortable, but Charissa a little more than average. There was the fact that she was nobility — speaking of which, Hermione still wasn't sure just how relevant or not that was in this country — but she'd mostly decided to ignore that. That wasn't it. Charissa had an unpleasant habit of just...staring at people. Thinking it brought forth dozens of memories of Charissa just sitting or standing somewhere and just watching people. It was weird. She didn't talk very much, or at least not as much as the other Ravenclaw girls, so Hermione didn't really know anything about her. Not that she really knew any of the other girls very well, that wasn't the point. She didn't know what the point was. It was just weird, okay, that was all.

And there Charissa was, standing at the side of the table. Just staring at her, with that level gaze she always used when watching people. Trying not to think about how Charissa had just heard her make that very undignified snort a couple seconds ago, she said, 'Yes?'

'Just thought I'd wake you up,' Charissa said with an easy shrug. 'Better having to deal with me than Madam Pince should she find you drooling all over one of her books.'

She had an absurd impulse to cross her arms and pout, but she managed to stop herself. 'I wasn't drooling all over a book.'

Charissa, halfway through pulling out the next chair over to sit down, froze. A single brow rose a little, and her eyes dropped down to _The Decline of Pagan Magic_.

Oh. Following her gaze, Hermione found a bit of a damp spot toward the bottom left of the page. Whoops. As Charissa sat and started pulling things out of her bag, Hermione sorted through her library of spells in her head, wand motions flicking past one by one before her eyes, her ears filled with incantations. She was positive she would have looked for a spell exactly for this pur— Ah, there it was. A quick check to remember where her wand was, then two taps against the page, and a muttered, ' _Na marathí_.' In an instant, the rather embarrassing little puddle of drool was gone, the page good as new.

Sometimes she thought it was a little odd how quickly she'd gotten used to doing magic. Accidentally get her book wet? Oh well, just pull out her magic wand and _casually violate the laws of physics_.

'That's handy,' said Charissa from less than a metre away.

Wow, Hermione must not have been paying attention at all. She'd almost forgotten Charissa was there. But then, she had been forgetting things recently — a novel experience for her she couldn't say she enjoyed so much. Not just little things, either. Sometimes her eyes would just get especially heavy, and she'd lose a few seconds here and there she couldn't remember at all. She had a nasty suspicion she'd started having microsleep episodes, but obviously there was no way to really be sure of that. 'Oh, yes, I suppose it is.'

'Tap twice, _na marathí_?'

'Yes.'

Charissa pulled a notebook out of her bag, one of those wads of sewn-together parchment magical people used. She opened it up to a page, and Hermione saw it was filled with spells — curving lines and figures she recognised as the standard code she'd memorised for wand movements followed by incantations, some but not all followed by additional notes. Charissa sketched twice the symbol for physically tapping the object to be charmed, then wrote what looked like _namara þi_, followed by _dry (water?)_. Hermione ignored the familiar pang of jealousy she got whenever she observed someone much more familiar with ink and quill than she was. Or the one she got whenever someone used a thorn, as magical people did, without having to think about it twice — she still forgot most of the time, it was too automatic. Then Charissa closed the notebook and returned it to her bag. 'Thanks.'

'It only works on clear liquids.' She hadn't meant to say it. It just came out.

'Yeah, I figured something like that.' Instead of her little spell notebook, now Charissa had a loose roll of parchment before her, flattened with the splayed fingers of one hand. She wrote what looked like a couple words at the top corner, then stopped, staring not at the page but through it, clearly thinking through her wording in her head.

Which meant she was probably writing a letter to someone. Okay. Rather random for someone to come sit next to her just to ignore her in favor of writing a letter. In her experience, when other kids came to sit next to her it was because they wanted help with their schoolwork. Sure, that'd happened more frequently back in primary school than it'd been happening here, but they'd just barely started — she expected it to happen more when the classes picked up. But even then, she honestly wouldn't expect Charissa to be one of the people angling for help. She'd been paying attention to how the other kids were doing — some people were too embarrassed to ask for help, especially boys, but usually took it fine if she offered first — and Charissa was mostly doing just as well as she was. Better, in Potions and Charms. And she acknowledged even in her own head that it might sound a bit pathetic, but helping other kids with schoolwork was more or less the breadth and depth of her social experience with people her own age. Honestly, she probably got along better with teachers and her parents' friends than schoolmates. So she didn't know what was going on here. That Charissa seemed completely uninterested in talking to her was just making her more confused.

Maybe she should just...go back to reading? Charissa was already ignoring her, so it couldn't be too mean to just ignore her back, could it?

'You can just ask, you know.'

Hermione blinked to herself for a second, trying to make sense of that statement. Ask about what? Why Charissa had come to sit by her? Well, she'd already said she'd decided to wake her up so Madam Pince didn't get at her first, and beyond that, Hermione didn't think it was exactly typical for people to be that...direct about this sort of thing? She didn't know, honestly. Other kids were weird. She should just ask what she would be asking about. If that made any sense at all. 'Erm, ask what?'

It belatedly occurred to her that Charissa had thought Hermione had been considering asking her something because she'd kind of been staring at her. Whoops. She forced her eyes back down to her book, shaking her head a little to herself.

'Why I was crying.'

Hermione glanced back to Charissa and noticed that, well, yes, her eyes were a bit red, she guessed she probably had been crying. She hadn't really been paying attention to that. Though by the slightly amused look on Charissa's face, she thought Charissa might have figured out she hadn't noticed — even if Hermione couldn't see what was so funny about that. But anyway, she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to ask Charissa what she'd been crying about. For one thing, she hardly knew her, and she was pretty sure this would be personal, and intruding on personal things just led to awkwardness all around. And, well, asking what she'd been crying about might lead to some conversational context where Hermione was expected to give advice or something, and she was completely horrible at that. If whatever the problem was didn't have a solution that was immediately obvious to her — and the sorts of problems most other kids had usually didn't — then she'd just be completely lost.

But, unfortunately, now she was curious, and there was really only one thing to be done about curiosity. 'You can tell me if you want, I guess.' Oh, damn. Did that sound too reluctant? Like she didn't really care, and felt all put out and obligated or whatever? She should apologise somehow, make sure Charissa didn't think—

Her thoughts were interrupted by how the corners of Charissa's lips were twitching, resisting a smile of some kind. What? What'd been so funny about that? 'Just found out my mother's in hospital, is all.'

'Oh, I'm sorry.' Hermione quickly referenced every conversation she'd ever heard or taken part in on similar subject matter — from how calm Charissa seemed, and how privately amused, Hermione was pretty sure whatever it was wasn't too big of a disaster. She hesitated for just a second before asking, 'She'll be okay?'

'Yeah, she'll be out in a couple days. Scary, is all.'

Hermione could see how that could be. On the train here, Charissa had mentioned at one point that her mother was an Auror, so Hermione'd taken a moment to look up exactly what that meant sometime during the first week. The impression she'd come away with was an odd combination of a police detective, an MI5 agent, and an SAS soldier. So, not exactly the easiest nor safest of jobs. If Charissa's mother was in hospital that probably meant she'd gotten in a fight with someone rather dangerous, and gotten hit with a curse of some kind. And most dark curses left damage that couldn't be completely healed ever. Which meant her mother was probably now permanently—

'I just wanted to write her a letter somewhere people wouldn't bother me about what's going on. So you don't have to make an effort to talk to me if you don't want.' Charissa was smiling at her just a little, the semi-amused expression with an oddly knowing cast to it.

Well. Charissa didn't want to talk about it. That was just fine — Hermione honestly didn't want to ask about it either. Talking about other people's mothers in hospitals was quite honestly far outside of her comfort zone. Especially when those mothers were basically special forces dark wizard fighters. Nope, had no idea how to handle that. Something of a relief, actually, that Charissa didn't want to talk to her about it. So that was more than fine.

But that wasn't the part of that that was sticking her head. It was partially what she'd said — _make an effort to talk_. It was partially the tone — all light and falsely casual. It was partially her expression — that strange, shrewd set to her face, like she knew more than she was saying. It all kept bouncing in Hermione's head as she pretended to read. For some seconds she sat there, thinking about all that instead of reading. Not really thinking, to be perfectly accurate, just sitting in something of a dazed stupor, the words echoing in her ears, Charissa's expression as she'd said them floating before her eyes. It had been getting harder to concentrate the last few days, and moments like this, when a past moment distracted her from the present moment and she couldn't devote the attention necessary to either, were growing more and more common. But it just kept bothering her and bothering her, dozens of remembered looks on Charissa's face, all vaguely similar, obscuring the words on the page just inches away.

Oh. Charissa watched people. She knew. That's what was going on.

At some point, Charissa must have put together that small talk was not exactly a skill of Hermione's. That if there wasn't some sort of framing academic context, she would hardly know what to say half the time. More than half the time, really. Charissa had figured it out, so had told her not to worry about it, just go back to reading. Why would Charissa do that? It didn't fit with her admittedly faulty model of how other people interacted. Was she missing something?

Was she really that obvious?

Well. If Charissa really had been trying to be considerate in telling her not to bother, it hadn't worked. Now she just had all new distractions to agonise over.

* * *

The reply came two days later.

 _I'm fine, Sweetheart. I could stand to go anoðer few rounds if your faðer and Peter would just quit hovering. I'd have to use my left hand, and I guess I'd be way more stationary þan usual, but þat'd really be enough for most people._

 _Vissie did manage to get me wið one curse I couldn't just shrug off, in þe right shoulder. Ububul-namtarak, it's called — þis really nasty-looking black lightning. Sev took care of it, I don't even have scars from it, but he said I'd probably be stiff for about a monþ or so. It's noþing to worry about. You didn't þink some upstart Magyar brat was going to get þe better of me, did you?_

 _You guessed right — Flitwick was probably avoiding saying it. I did kill Éjbevissza. We'd been dueling for what felt like forever, and þe arse had just hit me wið a somewhat nasty curse, you know. I wasn't happy wið him. I know oðer people would tell me not to be quite þis honest about it wið you, þat I should shield you from þe more unsavory facts of reality. I know your faðer won't like it. But stopping bad guys is what I do, and I'm good at it, and I refuse to be ashamed of it. I suggest you do þe same, should anyone at school give you a hard time about it when þe news gets out. Not þat I þink þey will — far as I've seen, magicals are a bit less squeamish about þis sort of þing þan muggles are._

 _I was going to say someþing þere, but I forgot what it was. I þink þe pain potions Sev gave me, and your faðer has been making me take, are making me a little silly. Sorry about þat._

 _Sounds like þe Hat had a bit of fun wið you, didn't it? Feels like centuries ago I was sitting on þat dinky little stool, but I still remember it's not þe nicest sapient article of cloðing in þe world. Or is it? Can't be þat many sapient articles of cloðing out þere, I would þink. I had absolutely no clue what was going on under þere. Þing was whispering in my head þese nonsense words. Ravenclaw, Slyðerin, Gryffindor — silliest-sounding words I'd ever heard. Þey were really all þe same to me. None of þem meant anyþing. Þis would probably make your faðer's head explode, but at þe time, I kind of wanted it to put me in Slyðerin. Sev was þe only person I knew in þe whole civilisation, you see, and he'd told me he was quite nearly positive he would be in Slyðerin. I was honestly a little disappointed when þe þing said it wouldn't be þe best idea. For þe obvious reason._

 _Because, see, I didn't have þe pre-prepared notions all þese oðer people do. I didn't have ancestors going back who knows how many generations in þis house or þat house. I didn't have þe centuries of accumulated associations influencing me from þe moment of my birþ. I didn't have practically any knowledge about what þe houses were like at all._

 _Þe reason I'm saying þis is it doesn't matter to me þe tiniest fraction of a whit which house you're in. Ravenclaw, Slyðerin, Hufflepuff, I don't care. If you're happy, and as long as you're not skiving off on your work, I'm happy. You could make me even more happy by beating my NEWT scores — I only got an E in Ariþmancy, so it's possible, if only barely. Ignore your faðer whenever he brings þe subject up. Þat's what I've been doing þe past couple days. He'll get over it before too long. Just focus on your classes and making friends. Everyþing else will settle._

 _I sent a letter to Flitwick telling him I might be sneaking you out of þe castle next week. I'm not supposed to apparate until Þursday, so þat day and after are fine wið me. I don't know what your schedule is like, but if you're not too embarrassed to be seen wið your moðer, I'll bust you out and we can find someþing to do for a couple hours. If you suggest anyþing þat involves drinking healing potions or lying in bed I will cancel on you._

 _And in case you're wondering, yes, I was teasing wið þe embarrassed bit. I can do it too._

 _I þink I've stolen enough of your time wið my maternal rambling. Write me wið a time to pick you up, and don't forget to have fun._

Maybe those potions were making Mum a little silly, but it didn't really seem that different from Mum in one of her more relaxed moods. She could be pretty weird sometimes. Charissa didn't know if she had any relatives she could claim with complete honesty _weren't_ a little weird.

Despite some of the more worrying things she'd said — that she'd been hit with a comparatively nasty curse, that she was on a potion regiment, that she wasn't allowed to apparate, that Dad and Uncle Peter were "hovering" — Charissa found the letter reassuring. Maybe the reason _why_ she found it reassuring would seem odd to most people, but she still did. Her mother knew enough dark magic that it was honestly a little scary to think about sometimes — it was hard to counter dark magic without knowing any, after all. From the sound of it, she was already starting to go a little crazy from everyone babying her during her recovery, and it'd only been a couple days. That implied to Charissa that Mum thought everyone was overreacting — and Mum would know what level of caution was appropriate way better than, say, Dad, who knew hardly anything about dark magic and curses and such. Mum was fine.

Charissa suddenly felt warmer and lighter than she had in over a month. As though she'd been carrying a cold weight on her shoulders she hadn't even noticed was there, suddenly lifted.

'Hey, Charissa?'

She blinked, turned to Morag to her right. She'd been in the Great Hall just starting on breakfast when Mum's letter had arrived. At the time the room had been more empty than usual, since most people started late on weekends — though the difference was much less pronounced at the Ravenclaw table. Morag hadn't been here when she'd started reading, but she must have shown up at some point, politely waiting for her to finish before getting her attention. That was nice of her. 'Yeah?'

'Can I ask you what might seem like a weird question?'

She'd always thought it was silly when people said things like that. What was she going to do, say no? 'Sure.'

'Have you ever seen Granger sleep?'

'Oh.' Frowning down at her toast, Charissa thought for a few seconds. Granger was always propped up with a book at her desk or in bed when Charissa was settling in to sleep — when she was in their room at all, that is. By the time Charissa woke up she was always already gone. Either in the common room or, she guessed, the library. Speaking of the library, 'Other than a couple days ago when I found her conked out on some history text in the library, no. Why?'

'Because I don't think she's sleeping. At least not enough.'

Charissa peaked through the red curliness framing Morag's face to see she looked completely serious. So she'd noticed it too, then. Granger had been getting gradually more frazzled as the days went by. Hair somehow even messier, dark circles under red eyes. The last couple days, she'd even started snapping at people who bothered her while she was reading. Now, Charissa hadn't met Granger all that long ago, and didn't really know her very well at all, but that still seemed out of character. She was pretty sure Granger was starting to lose it. 'Alright. What do we do about it, then?'

With an uncomfortable grimace on her face, Morag shrugged. 'I don't know. I tried talking to her about it, but she just insisted she was fine, and told me to just leave her alone.'

'When was that?'

'Tuesday, I think.'

'Hmm.' Charissa scratched at her cheek for a second. 'I don't know, if she doesn't think it's a problem, I don't think there's a lot we can do to—' She was interrupted by a voice from immediately behind her and to her right, a rude shout in a bouncing, teasing voice. Even though the texture of the voice itself wasn't entirely familiar, the tone was as identifiable as a face. She muttered an apology to Morag while she still had time.

'Hey, you, scoot it for my baby cousin.'

'What are we doing?' That voice was just as identifiable — that was Neville. 'Let's just go back to our table, okay? You don't want to—'

'No, I _so_ want to.' A couple seconds later, Dora had forced off the fifth year who'd been a little ways to Charissa's left, then plopped down next to her, a somewhat embarrassed-looking Neville at her other side. 'Hello there, Little Miss Potter.'

Dora had a huge, reckless grin on her face — the one Charissa thought of as her "official" face, how she looked when they were in public or something and she was supposed to be herself. If that made sense. Which mostly seemed to be an imitation of Dora's mother, but that wasn't so important right now. Charissa felt her own lips curling quite against her will — there was just something about Dora that made it almost impossible _not_ to smile back at her. But before she could say anything, a sixth year girl across and a few seats down snarled over at them. 'Come _on_ , Tonks, I thought we settled this last year.'

Dora glanced over at her. 'Last year my baby cousin wasn't in Ravenclaw.'

The girl hesitated, her eyes flashing at some of the older students around her, then turned to Charissa. 'Tonks is your cousin?'

Charissa shrugged.

'You have my eternal sympathies.'

'Ignore her,' Dora said, flipping a hand at the sixth-year dismissively. 'She's just annoyed with me because she caught Timmy snogging me out on the grounds last year.'

The girl's face shifted quite suddenly into a cold sort of glare. ' _Toby_. His name is _Toby_.'

'Is it?' Dora shrugged. 'I don't think I actually asked.'

'He was my boyfriend, you—'

'How is that my problem? Not _my_ fault he never said he was seeing anyone. Sounds to me like he's the one you should be being all snitty at.'

For long seconds, the sixth-year just glared at Dora. Finally, she let out a long sigh and, shaking her head to herself in obvious exasperation, returned to her breakfast.

'Anyway,' Dora said, smooth and light as though there'd been no awkward interruption at all, 'I wanted to show you two this.' She pulled a rolled up copy of the _Prophet_ from her robes.

'I didn't know you got the _Prophet_ ,' Neville said.

'I don't. Borrowed it from a Gryffindor.' Charissa couldn't help wondering if the Gryffindor in question had been informed before Dora had _borrowed_ it. 'But look, this is great. Right on the front page, saw it as I was walking by.'

Charissa first guess what it could possibly be turned out to be right — the huge, bolded title at the top read _ICW FORCE DEFEATS ÉJBEVISSZA_ , a subtitle just beneath _Six Aurors to be Awarded Order of Myrðin, Foreign Honours_. Under that was a photograph, five of the eight Charissa recognised instantly. Mum and Aunt Alice along with Sir Dawlish, Sir Scrimgeour and Dame Bones. She assumed the other three were Aurors too, but she didn't know them by sight. According to the caption under the photo, it'd been taken hardly an hour before the six had been sent off to Magyarland by portkey. 'Yeah,' Charissa said with a shrug, 'I knew about that already.'

'Yeah, Mum wrote me about it.' Charissa couldn't see Neville around Dora at the moment, but by his tone of voice she was certain he had mirrored her shrug.

Dora made a noise deep in her throat, a sound of exasperation, of disbelief. 'You two, _seriously_. Both of your mothers are being given Orders of Myrðin and all kinds of other shite from Magyarland and the ICW for being two of the most kick-ass witches in the entirety of Europe, for saving who knows how many thousands of people from some Dark Prick through their sheer amazingness, and you don't care at all, do you?'

Yeah. Dora could be this way sometimes. It really seemed like she had an unhealthy degree of adoration for figures she saw as heroic — whether historical, fictional, or even people in real life she'd actually met. That probably had something to do with her aspiration to become an Auror. She had such intense regard for all these people that she wanted to be one, that, as far as Charissa could tell, anything else a person could be somehow represented a moral failing. In Dora's head, if someone were skilled enough to be an Auror, why wouldn't they? What else could possibly be worth their effort? So it didn't surprise Charissa at all that she was so excited about the fall of Éjebevissza, so proud of Mum and Aunt Alice being recognised — this was the kind of thing she valued, the only sort of thing that mattered in her little world.

But Charissa didn't really care about that part at all. 'Excuse me, but I'm mostly just relieved my mother didn't die.'

'I wasn't really worried about that,' Neville said, 'but I don't really see how the other stuff matters so much.'

Charissa leaned around Dora to look at Neville, her eyebrow unconsciously raised. 'You weren't worried?'

He shifted in his seat a little, a slightly embarrassed cast falling over his face. 'Well, no. Mum told me before she left she would be fine. She said as long as she's with your mum and Sir Dawlish nothing would happen to her.'

Hmm. Interesting. That wasn't so surprising of a thing for Aunt Alice to say — or even believe, she guessed — but, 'Are you saying you weren't _actually_ worried, or you'd been told you _shouldn't_ worry?'

'Er, the second one, I guess.'

Yeah, that's what she'd thought.

'I dunno,' Dora was saying, her voice pitched a little annoyed, 'I don't get you two. If I were you I'd be running around telling everyone how I have the most completely awesome mother in the world.'

Somehow, Charissa had absolutely no trouble believing that. Neville spoke before she could, saying almost the exact same thing she'd been about to. 'If you really want to run around telling people how great they are, I'm not going to stop you.'

'Yeah, go nuts,' she added.

For some seconds, Dora just sat there, glancing between the two of them with a scandalised expression on her face that Charissa was pretty sure was insincere. With a huff, she picked up the _Prophet_ , and was gone.

Shaking her head, Charissa said, 'Sometimes I wonder about her.'

Neville shrugged, his lips tilted into a vague sort of smile.

* * *

 _illūcē — Did I just change a canon incantation? I think I did. It's just_ lumos _, but, honestly I tried to copy the bad fake Latin but it was physically painful, and my fingers wouldn't let me. Probs do that with most incantations, honestly. It's the second person imperative for "to illuminate" (second person because you're talking to your wand, if that makes sense). Most people will just say_ lūcē _, if they even bother saying the incantation at all._

Brīþwn vowels _— The y, w,_ _ī and_ _ _ē, i_ n IPA, would be [ɨ] [ʉ] [y] and [ø]. Look them up if you care (on the vowel chart for the International Phonetic Alphabet wiki page), don't if you don't. That only applies in __Brīþwn of course —_ _ī and_ _ē are just long vowels in Latin.  
_

 _altum levētur — I will make no excuses for changing the canon incantation for the levitation charm. It's just...so, so ridiculous. Means something like "be raised high"  
_

 _īnflammet — I did it again. The canon_ incendio _is the ablative of the noun for fire which just seems...really weird to me? I really just think incantations should be verbs. I almost used_ incendat _before changing to_ īnflammet _for reasons I won't bother explaining._

Raẖqācit _— The native Egyptian name for the city of Alexandria. That transliteration is just a random attempt I made. Egyptian isn't really intended to be written in the Roman alphabet. The older name, the one I transliterated, is pretty much unpronounceable for native English speakers, but_ Rakote _is the same name in Coptic, a far more modern variant of the Egyptian language, and is just something like "rah-koh-tuh."  
_

Agad _— The ancient Mesopotamian city of Akkad. I messed with the pronunciation, because, well, it's been thousands of years. It really wouldn't really be pronounced anything like that anymore anyway._ _Fun fact: archaeologists have never been able to find the actual site of the city, even though we know from contemporary cuneiform writings it must exist, and even the general area it must exist in. Isn't that **interesting**?  
_

 _na marathí (να μαραθεί) — This is supposed to be the subjunctive form of "to whither" (μαραινομαί) in modern Greek, but I'll be the first to admit my Greek isn't very good. Romanized to reflect pronunciation, not necessarily spelling (which will be how I handle any later Greek too). And Charissa wrote the theta with a thorn — if this were her POV, the spoken incantation would have been done with it too, but Hermione isn't used to using thorn and eth yet._

 _Myrðin (roughly "mer-thin") — Yeah, there is absolutely no good reason magical British people would say it "Merlin," there just isn't. The Welsh name is spelled_ Myrddin _, which Geoffrey of Monmouth Latinised as_ Merlinus _, presumably because a French person just reading "Myrddin" without knowing how it's supposed to be pronounced would say something nearly identical in pronunciation to_ merde _. Whoops. Due to cultural fuckery, the Frenchified name ended up being preserved in English culture. That just didn't happen among magical people at all, since Geoffrey is not the source their legend is derived from. And since I'm actually using thorn and eth, it becomes Myrðin instead of Myrddin._

 _Morgen (roughly "more-gain") — Might as well put this here too, as it will come up eventually. Much as "Merlin" is a corruption of the original name, Morgen's name has seen all kinds of fuckery. The commonly seen "Morgan le Fay" is obviously French — and gets additional giggle points because "Morgan" in Welsh is **a masculine name** — and _ Morgana _is Italian, so no. Some people, including Charissa, will use the Goidelic (Irish/Scottish) version of the name — Muirgein or Muirgen, they're pronounced roughly identically — but they refer to the same person. But, yeah, it'll mostly be Morgen or Muirgen characters use. Hermione might say_ Morgan le Fay _or such at some point, but she's muggleborn, so._

 _Yes, I know, I'm such a language geek, and have a problem with rambling. I can't help it._


	5. First Year — September 20th

When someone wrapped their arms around her from behind on her way out of Transfiguration a week later, her first assumption was that it was Dora. Now, Dora hadn't tracked her down anywhere outside of the Great Hall or the library yet — she assumed because Dora was busy doing things that weren't any of her business and she didn't want to think about — but doing it today of all days wouldn't surprise her. She was supposed to meet Mum down in the Entrance Hall, so Dora deciding to tag along wasn't outside the realm of possibility.

But an instant later, she was certain this wasn't Dora. As odd as it might sound, this didn't _feel_ like Dora. It might sound odd to say because, well, that knowledge couldn't be based on the person's shape — while Dora kept herself more or less the same while in public, that didn't mean she _couldn't_ change when she felt like it. Dora could be shaped like anyone. It wasn't a physical thing necessarily that made her certain this wasn't Dora. It was a feeling she had noticed before, many times, though few since she'd become magically sensitive enough for that awareness to really be conscious. A sort of warmth in her head, a sort of fluttering resonance that she couldn't exactly put words to. She didn't exactly understand why this feeling happened, but she knew that she only felt it around one person in the world.

Mum apparently hadn't felt like waiting in the Entrance Hall.

'Hey, Sweetheart,' she muttered into Charissa's hair, sending strands of it fluttering, tickling against her skin.

Sure she was smiling like an idiot, she muttered back, 'Hey, Mum.'

'We're going into muggle London, so you'll need passable clothes.'

Charissa nodded, spent a second searching for another Ravenclaw leaving the room. She'd gotten out pretty close to the front of the pack, so there should be— 'Patil!'

The girl paused practically in mid-step, turned around with a curious look on her face. Charissa would admit she hadn't talked to Patil a whole lot, which hadn't entirely been her doing. The first couple weeks, Patil had hardly talked at all to anyone, and even when she did it was in an odd, indistinct way, as though having to force her way through a pall the rest of them couldn't detect. Charissa was pretty sure it was because her sister was in Gryffindor — twins almost invariably had peculiar mind magics going on, the exact reason it had once been commonplace in Europe to kill one of the two at birth — so she'd decided to just ignore it, give her some time. She seemed to be better now, had actually started talking. So there was that.

Not that Charissa had really picked up all that much about her after only a couple days. Her family was the equivalent of a Noble House among the Marathi in southern Asia — though a _large_ Noble House, so these Patils were far afield of the line of succession — and she liked to read. She liked to read _a lot_. That was pretty much all Charissa had figured out by now.

So Patil was completely justified in looking so curious about why Charissa would shout for her like that. 'Yes?'

'Is my mum allowed to come into the common room with me for a couple minutes?' Charissa couldn't remember offhand if there was a rule about that.

Her eyes flicked up to Mum over Charissa's shoulder for just a second. 'I don't see why not.'

'You're going to have to remind me where it is,' Mum said, letting go and straightening to her full height. Charissa couldn't see, but by how Patil's curious look intensified slightly she assumed Mum wasn't quite completely recovered from that curse. 'It's been a while.'

Since the usual classroom for Transfiguration was on the ground floor, getting up to the common room involved a considerable number of stairs. Charissa noticed immediately that Mum was favouring her right side. It gave her a sort of awkward, lopsided gait climbing stairs, apparently unwilling to allow her shoulder the usual range of motion that would be appropriate. It was also obvious Mum was trying to hide it, though, minimising her occasional hesitations, all cheerfully chatting about, of all things, Marathi literature. Charissa had _no idea_ how Mum knew all the things she did, it was weird. She even knew a lot more about the topic than Patil did — while Patil had been raised bilingual, she had been born in Britain, and considered herself more British than Marathi. So Charissa did her best to ignore it, to not worry about Mum's lingering injuries, to not give any sign she was worrying as best she could.

When they got to the Tower, Mum skipped ahead of them, so she would get the riddle from the eagle. For perhaps the third time, Charissa had no idea what the answer to the question was supposed to be. She didn't even understand it — it hadn't been in English. She thought it might have been Egyptian, but she wasn't sure. The eagle was charmed, she knew, to detect the age of the approaching person and scale the difficulty of the riddle appropriately — first years did not get the same questions as, say, seventh years — so the eagle must have given her a riddle it felt appropriate for someone who was thirty.

While they waited, Mum's head bobbing in rhythm with whatever she was mouthing to herself, Charissa glanced at Patil. She didn't seem to have any more of an idea than Charissa did.

After maybe ten seconds, Mum answered in the same language, and the way was opened. 'Huh,' Mum said, blinking to herself. 'Didn't know this thing asked questions in Egyptian.'

So she had guessed the language right, at least. 'I've heard Brīþwn a couple times, but never Egyptian.'

'It must have thought you were too smart,' Patil said. 'Were you in Ravenclaw when you were here?'

'Oh, no,' Mum said with a laugh on her voice, stepping into the room. 'I was a Gryffindor.'

The look of doubtful surprise on Patil's face, like she were half-sure Mum was joking, didn't slip past Charissa. Gryffindor didn't exactly have the best of reputations among Ravenclaws. Somewhat justified, sure — while Gryffindor may produce an occasional intellectual giant, such minds were exceedingly rare in the house — but still.

But because this was Lily Potter, the now-famous Auror, the fact she was two decades ago Sorted into Gryffindor didn't stop half the house from swarming her the second she stepped into the common room.

* * *

'That's why we're in muggle London, isn't it.'

Not that Charissa had any real sense of where they were. After popping into existence in an alley, pausing a moment to shake off the disorientation from the apparation itself, Mum had led her out into the semi-crowded street. It was instantly identifiable as a muggle street — the somewhat unfamiliar clothes all the dozens of people were wearing, the contents of the stores and the aesthetics of the offices along the sides, the complete lack of anything magic going on around them. And, well, the rows of cars puttering down the centre. Those weren't exactly anything one would normally see. Even the sheer number of people walking around was a hint, though not necessarily a giveaway. The magical population of Britain was only a small fraction the size of the muggle population, so it would have to be a special event of some kind for there to be this many people wandering about.

But all of that was essentially meaningless to her, background noise that was, if unusual, ultimately indistinguishable. There was nothing here all that familiar. She'd caught a couple road signs, but the names meant nothing to her. She might as well be in a foreign country, one that had absolutely nothing to do with her, and that she had little investment in. To be honest, she didn't find the muggle world at all interesting. Even if it wouldn't be a waste of time to take Muggle Studies — she had a muggleborn mother who she could _just ask_ if there was anything she needed to know — she still wouldn't have bothered. It all just seemed so...dull.

But, everyone around them didn't even give them a second glance — or even a first glance, much of the time. She was pretty sure that was why Mum had decided to bring her here. Charissa somehow doubted they could have been nearly as unmolested anywhere magical people congregated.

Maybe what she'd meant by that hadn't been too obvious, but Mum clearly figured it out anyway. 'Nearly only way to avoid well-meaning stalkers these days. They'll all go back to pretending I don't exist in a few weeks, so I'm doing my best to hide until then.'

And there Mum had to go and say something to make her uncomfortable again. Charissa knew perfectly well why some people liked to _pretend she didn't exist._ That whole attitude had been floating around for her whole life, even if she hadn't really picked up on it until a couple years ago. She really couldn't understand how people could _possibly_ think like that. The logic just didn't hold up, their arguments hollow pathos that only made the speaker sound pathetic, made the victim by their own directionlessness and arrogance. And she was _eleven_. It astounded her that _she_ could see it but they couldn't. Did they even pay attention to what was coming out of their own mouths? Or did they just _not care_ how stupid they sounded?

She was generally happier if she pretended _they_ didn't exist.

It hadn't really started sinking in until recently — say, right around the time Charissa had bruised her hand on the birthday girl's face — that Mum must have had a really, really hard time. Probably still did. She tried not to think about that as much as she could. Because whenever she did, it would make her really, _really_ _angry_. And she _hated_ feeling angry. It made her all tense and icky inside, made her so jittery it was impossible to sleep, it was awful. That Mum was an Auror just made it even worse. She had enough sympathy for everyone around her that she repeatedly _risked her life_ to protect them, and the entire society on the average could barely summon the decency to _tolerate_ her with the proper politeness.

At least Charissa had hit one person who deserved it for that shite, but sometimes that just wasn't enough. Almost made it worse, even, because it had just been so _perversely satisfying_ it was hard to stop herself from doing it again. Every time someone looked on with disapproving eyes, every time they tittered away with their idiotic comments they thought were so very _clever_ , every time it took all she had not to start screaming at them, not to punch them in their smug little faces, not to, now that she had a wand and everything, set those smug little faces _on fire._ Maybe _then_ they wouldn't find it so bleeding _funny_. Maybe _then_ they would actually think for _two seconds_ before they spit out the first bit of _fatuous rubbish_ that comes up in their—

Okay, she had to stop thinking about this. She was going to spend half the night awake with a boiling head at this rate.

Charissa wasn't entirely sure what to expect, having been dragged off like this. She didn't really go anywhere with Mum all that often — when she was home she usually preferred, well, staying at home. But even so, she was entirely unsurprised when Mum dragged her into a clothing store of...some kind. She really didn't know the muggle terminology for this sort of thing. It was a large place, she could tell immediately, probably larger inside than any clothing store she'd ever been in before. Any magical clothing store, anyway — Mum had taken her to places like this before on the rare occasion. Yet she was pretty sure this whole place, all bright and shiny and airy, only sold things for women and girls. Which was a rather odd thought, really. There just weren't enough people in magical Britain to need a store this large. It didn't hurt that muggles needed to buy clothes way more often — even cheap clothes made by witches and wizards were far more resistant to wear than those made by muggles. She still remembered when Mum had first bought her a pair of jeans when she'd been maybe eight or so, and she'd been surprised by how surprised Charissa had been when she'd worn through the knee hardly four months later.

And so Charissa proceeded to do what she usually did whenever Mum dragged her shopping for clothes — trail behind and try not to seem too annoyed. To be completely honest, she found it rather silly how worked up everyone got over what they wore. Especially since a lot of the things people wore were just...well, really annoying and uncomfortable. But she didn't want to make Mum feel bad — in this particular context especially — so she just floated behind her, playing along. And she was pretty sure she was keeping up the charade pretty well.

Which just goes to show she's not nearly as good of a liar as she thought.

'What's wrong?'

Charissa blinked, glancing up at Mum. They were back by what passed for the fitting rooms, just the little stalls muggle stores had, Mum halfway through handing her something she'd picked off a rack at one point — a skirt, one not so muggle-looking the style was a dead giveaway. Not that she liked it. 'Huh?'

For a few seconds, Mum just stared at her, her head tilted to a slight angle. 'You're allowed to say you don't like it.'

After just the shortest hesitation, she shrugged, said, 'Okay, I don't like it.'

'Why not?' Before Charissa could make some excuse, Mum said, 'Honest, now. It doesn't help me figure you out if you're not honest.'

Oh, well, erm. When Mum said that, it kind of made it obvious she shouldn't have made a habit of, well, not being honest about this stuff. It was a bit stupid in retrospect. 'It's just a bit, you know...' She shrugged, looking again over the skirt, still dangling from Mum's hand. 'Frilly, and girly, and I dunno.'

Now Mum was the one blinking at her. 'Do you not like frilly and girly?'

Charissa wasn't entirely sure how to interpret that look on Mum's face. So she might as well just answer directly. 'Not really.' For a second she wavered — she felt oddly embarrassed over speaking the thought she was having — but she managed to get it out. 'I prefer the sort of thing you wear most of the time, honestly.'

Folding the skirt over her other arm, with the couple other things she had picked up Charissa was equally uninterested in, Mum gave her an odd, baffled sort of look. 'What I wear is mostly out of a combination of laziness and, well, the fact I _have_ to. I could be called in at any time, so my options are somewhat limited. Some things you just can't move in so well, you know.'

'I dunno,' Charissa said, trying not to let on how uncomfortable the way Mum was staring at her was making her. 'I really like your dress robes.'

Mum's lips twitched a little, as though she wanted to smile, but didn't think it was appropriate at the moment. 'Sweetheart, my dress robes are all just fancy duelling outfits. I mean, they're practically the same thing as my uniform, that's why I bought them.'

'I _like_ the Auror uniform.'

With something between a laugh and a sigh, let out under her breath, Mum walked over to a stand by the stalls, hanging up all the clothes on her arm. 'Alright. I know now, then.'

Charissa knew that tone on Mum's voice — she was annoyed. Whoops. That would be why she mostly kept quiet about this stuff. 'Erm, sorry. I didn't—'

'No,' Mum said, waving her off. 'Don't apologise. You have nothing to apologise for. I only feel like an idiot now, is all. Been buying you rubbish you don't even like for years and I was too thick to notice. That's on me. I mean, it's obvious now that I look back on it. With what you choose to sleep in, I should have noticed.'

The use of the word _sleep_ made Charissa think of something totally different, and her mind was suddenly miles away from this topic. Granger had only been getting worse the last week, and she and Morag and the other Ravenclaw girls hadn't figured out what to do about it yet. She couldn't imagine Granger had very much longer to go until she started slipping. Or maybe she'd just blow up all at once, who knew. They were considering bringing it to the professors, let them handle it, but Charissa wasn't entirely sure that was a good idea. She wasn't sure what they would do. Doing the wrong thing could be worse than doing nothing at all. But, she had an adult with her right now, one who was not only really smart, but had been exactly in Granger's position before — muggleborn shoved into their world. She'd know what to do.

That's what Charissa chose in that moment to believe, anyway.

'Mum, I need your advice on something.'

The annoyed expression on Mum's face — which had apparently been self-directed, but that could be hard to tell sometimes, so Charissa excused herself for misinterpreting — instantly shifted to one more curious. 'What about?'

'Well, we can't really talk about it, er...' She glanced around, flicking over the muggle women conceivably within earshot.

'Right. In here.' Mum led the way into one of the stalls, closing it behind Charissa. She pulled her wand out of nowhere and, with a casual wave, the noise of the surrounding store and street beyond vanished completely, Mum's privacy charm isolating them from the world. 'What's this about?' Mum sat herself down on a little poofy stool in the corner of the tiny stall, looking up at Charissa.

'Well.' Okay, this was suddenly a little awkward. She wasn't entirely sure how to ask what she was meaning to ask. Just talk. 'There's this girl in my year you see. One of my roommates, actually.' Mum raised an eyebrow at her, silently telling her to keep going. 'She's probably gonna be the top of our class. She always answers questions first, and in practical lessons is always the first to manage whatever it is we're supposed to be doing. Really _nuts_ in Transfiguration. The first practical lesson was, you know—'

'Matchsticks to needles,' Mum said, her smile a little wistful. 'I remember.'

Charissa nodded. 'It only took me maybe two minutes to get it—' She noticed Mum's smile turn a little wider at that. '—but Granger had it almost instantly. Just looked at her match for a couple seconds, tapped it, and done.'

'You're both better than I was anyway.' Charissa must have given her a look at that, because she shrugged, said, 'I had trouble in Transfiguration the first couple years. Fourth year on, my class rank was in the single digits, but until then I wasn't doing too well. Only subject your father, your uncles, and Alice ever beat me in. Well, excluding NEWT Arithmancy — I did better in the class, but Remus got an O on the exam. But anyway,' Mum said, visibly refocusing herself, 'you were saying.'

'Granger is muggleborn, you see.'

Charissa had no idea how to interpret the look Mum was giving her. More focused, watching her more intently, but she wasn't exactly sure what the intent behind it was. 'Yes?'

'She's not sleeping.'

Mum obviously hadn't been expecting that one. She blinked at Charissa for a few seconds, before saying, 'Not sleeping?'

'No.'

'What does she do instead?'

'Read. And not our school books, either. Patil said she saw her with an English version of _Meðwlix að nVēseg_ , and I caught her sleeping on a copy of some Bagshot book, I forget which. She's been getting worse and worse, you know. Looking like she's gonna pass out at any second. Snapping at anyone who bothers her. I don't think she can keep going much longer.'

A thoughtful sort of frown on her face, Mum stared at the ground, her fingers dancing against the seat. 'You've tried talking to her about it.'

It wasn't a question, not exactly, but Charissa got the point. 'Of course, but she just tells us she's fine, not to worry over her, and goes back to reading.'

'Well, she's obviously not fine.'

'Obviously.'

Mum hummed to herself, her wand, still drawn from when she'd laid the privacy charm, now tapping against her leg. 'If she's not open to talking about it, and you're not yet willing to get Flitwick involved, there's one obvious thing you could try.'

She still didn't know why people did stuff like this. Why didn't she just say what she was thinking? Rather silly. 'What?'

'You help her sleep, whether she likes it or not.'

'Er...?'

A smirk stretched across her face, and Charissa noticed, with a jolting shock of surprise, that Mum's wand was no longer tapping, instead pointed directly at her chest. 'Darþanoĭo.'

Black fell upon her in a wave of weakness so suddenly and so quickly she didn't even have time to twitch.

* * *

Charissa awoke with peculiar suddenness, frantic energy pounding in her veins. Even as she started up to sitting, her eyes popping open, the adrenaline faded away, and she was simply awake. Sitting on the poofy little stool in the fitting room stall, Mum kneeling in front of her, a crooked smile on her face. Summoning a glare, Charissa said, 'Was that really necessary?'

'No,' she said, smirking, 'but you're adorable when you're annoyed.'

Charissa did something she would never do if she weren't alone with anyone but a couple specific people — she found this sort of thing very silly, and she'd be too embarrassed to do it in front of most everyone. She slumped back against the wall, crossed her arms sharply over her chest, tightened her mouth just enough to get her lip to pout a little.

Mum just smiled wider. 'See? Adorable. But if you're going to be using the spell on this girl, you should know what it feels like anyway.'

For a few seconds, Charissa could only stare at her. 'You're suggesting I force Granger to sleep with magic.'

'Yes.' Mum said that easily enough, without the slightest trace of self-consciousness, or the slightest awareness that maybe she shouldn't be telling her eleven-year-old daughter to jinx people.

Which, to be completely honest, didn't surprise Charissa at all. She let out a short puff of a sigh. 'Well, fine. What's the incantation again?'

The spell turned out to be one that wasn't too complicated to learn. Mum said she'd done that on purpose — there were other charms to put people to sleep, but none of the others were ideal for various reasons. Some of them Granger would wake up from as soon as the charm wore off, but this charm worked by pushing the brain _toward_ sleep, instead of just imposing a sleep state. It was the charm Healers used to help patients sleep for that exact reason. It was also a comparatively safe charm. If Granger were doing something where suddenly falling asleep would be a bad idea — the example Mum used was flying on a broom — the heightened hormonal activity would resist the spell's effects. In theory, Charissa could simply overpower the spell to make it work anyway, but she probably wasn't good enough to pull that off yet. For the same reason, she wouldn't be able to put to sleep anyone significantly more powerful than her — in fact, she practised the spell on Mum, and it hardly seemed to affect her at all. After a few minutes practising, Mum said it was good enough. Granger might be able to resist it a little, she warned, but if it didn't work right away a second casting should do it.

Before too long, they were walking out of the store, again pacing down the muggle street. 'Good timing, anyway,' Mum said over the noise generated by crowd and machine. 'We're only going to be barely five minutes early now.'

'Early for what?'

'Sorry, I must not have said. We're meeting someone for dinner.' Mum hadn't said, but it didn't really make that much of a difference. After a second, Charissa realised Mum was hesitating, clearly debating whether she should say something else. 'It's important. I'll tell you why later. After dinner, before I drop you off at school.'

Well. That wasn't ominous at all.

As soon as they got to the place, a couple streets down from that clothing store, Charissa immediately thought she might be underdressed. It wasn't an exceptionally high-class place or anything, but it was certainly nice. The walls all warm and red, accented with dark, gleaming wood here and there, the tables glowing brightly under soft light from sparkling fixtures. She now understood why, when she'd come down in jeans and some random shirt she'd grabbed, Mum had sent her back to change into something nicer — though she hadn't changed into a dress, which Mum had obviously expected, because, well, they had just talked about that.

Just who they were meeting here?

She didn't have to wait very long at all to find out. They'd hardly been inside two minutes before two people followed them into the little waiting area at the front, Mum immediately turning to them. Charissa was a little surprised to see they made two exceptionally similar pairs — much like she and Mum made an obvious mother–daughter pair, she assumed these two were as well. She thought the woman might be some years older than Mum — though if she were a muggle, which she guessed was possible and maybe even likely, Charissa's estimation of age could be entirely wrong — and the girl was probably right around Charissa's age. Maybe a little younger, but certainly not by very much. The woman was mostly unexceptional in appearance, with flat, wispy blonde hair, other than that she was very tall, significantly taller than Mum, and Charissa thought her limbs and even her face looked the slightest bit odd and disproportionate, as though they'd been stretched a little. The child who was quite likely the woman's daughter was a perfectly ordinary-looking, round-faced girl, her hair a bright orangish-red held back in a long braid. They were both made out more fancy than Charissa and Mum, in nice dresses and such. Not the sort of thing someone would wear to a really formal occasion or anything, but nice.

Mum, an easy smile on her face, said to the woman, 'Hello again.'

'Hello, Lily.' While not exactly unkind, the woman didn't seem nearly as unequivocally pleased to see Mum as Mum was to see her.

Still with a smile on her face and a bounce on her voice, Mum spoke to the girl. 'Jasmine, this is my daughter, Charissa.' Mum then turned to her. 'I don't know if you remember. It's been a while. But this is your aunt, Petunia, and your cousin, Jasmine.'

Erm. No. Charissa didn't remember at all. Well, okay, that wasn't _entirely_ true. She'd known Mum had a sister, a sister who was married and quite likely had children, but she didn't really know anything about them, nor could she remember meeting them. They were muggles, after all — she didn't really have a lot of opportunity to meet muggles. Especially since, the way the law was written, only Mum's immediate family was allowed to know about magic. Her parents, her siblings. Jasmine, for example, shouldn't know magic even existed, much less any details about the wider world. So Jasmine certainly couldn't come visit them anywhere, and children weren't exactly known for skillfully keeping secrets, so visiting them wasn't the safest idea.

So Charissa had no idea how to handle herself at the moment. She'd never had family she'd never met before. At least not recently, nor this closely related. Should she be treating them like family or like strangers? This was confusing.

Apparently, she wasn't the only one who thought so. By the time they were settled at their table, sitting in almost absurdly comfortable chairs, Charissa had ranked the four of them by how uncomfortable they seemed. Petunia was the most uncomfortable, no contest — she almost seemed annoyed somehow, as though she'd been offended by something, though evidently doing her best to be polite. Mum and herself were in the middle. By how friendly and cheerful Mum was trying to be, one would think she was more at ease than Charissa, but she didn't buy it for a second. It was obvious to her Mum was walking on eggshells, trying not to say the wrong thing, filling silences before they could get awkward. For herself, Charissa had fallen into her default in awkward situations — talking only when something was directly expected of her, otherwise sipping at her water in silence.

Jasmine looked and sounded like she was actually having fun, so she was definitely the least uncomfortable. Girl was oddly bubbly, actually. If Charissa hadn't known better, she'd think her new cousin had been hit with a cheering charm on the way in.

They didn't really talk about anything all that interesting. Which wasn't all that surprising — most anything interesting, she and Mum would have to wiggle themselves out of saying anything about anything magic-related, which made entire possible topics of discussion too tedious to touch on for too long. To be completely honest, Charissa spent the entire meal vacillating between uncomfortable and bored. When she wasn't being dragged into the conversation — Mum seemed to be trying to get her and Jasmine acquainted with each other, which was difficult what with the taboo on so many aspects of Charissa's life — she spent most of her time trying to figure out why this was happening.

Mum had said something at one point, when Petunia had a little rudely said aloud a thought not much different, that Charissa thought was probably partially true. Despite how much she deflected, Mum could admit that that business with Éjbevissza had been a pretty close call. (Though she'd had to sanitise the topic for conversation with muggles, that wasn't the point.) There had been a moment there Mum had thought she was about to die — and _wow_ , was that something Charissa _didn't want to think about_ — and on her list of regrets had been letting her relationship with her family disintegrate. She just wanted to see her sister. Did it have to be anything more than that?

But the problem was, Charissa was pretty sure there was something more than that. Mum had implied it — _It's important_ , she'd said. _I'll tell you why later._ But Charissa couldn't think of a reason it was important. Sure, rebuilding her relationship with her family, that was fine. Charissa didn't have a problem with that. But the way Mum had hesitated, the weird way she'd said it, the words themselves... Charissa was positive there was more to it. She just didn't know what.

When they were finishing up, Mum lingering over her wine for longer than was probably necessary, Petunia left for the lavatory. Not the most gracefully — Charissa got the very distinct impression she wasn't comfortable leaving her daughter alone in the company of two witches — but she left. And that was when a most peculiar thing happened.

Jasmine, who had been in the middle of a ramble involving one of the girls in her school's football team, broke off, watching her mother walk away. As soon as she was out of sight, Jasmine turned to Lily and, in her bouncing voice that reminded Charissa forcibly of Dora every time she spoke, said, 'You're magic, right? It's just, when you were over yesterday I didn't get a chance to ask without Mum around.'

For long seconds, Charissa sat blinking, her head empty of everything but shocked blankness. What? A glance over at Mum, and it was obvious she was just as surprised. After a little bit, she found her voice again. 'Ah, yes.'

Before Mum could say anything else, Jasmine turned to Charissa. 'Are you magic too?'

'Erm.' Charissa glanced at Mum, who just shrugged at her. 'Yeah. I can't do as much as Mum, I just started at school. But yeah.'

'How did you know about that, anyway?' Mum said, giving Jasmine a peculiar sort of look Charissa couldn't quite interpret. 'I mean, I somehow doubt your mother told you.'

Jasmine shrugged. 'Nope. But she's not as good at keeping secrets as she thinks she is.' When the two of them just stared at her, she added, 'She has letters from you, years old. I read them.'

That wasn't exactly good. If anyone found out, would Jasmine's memory have to be erased? Charissa knew that sort of thing happened all the time, but the thought of it didn't really sit well with her. Erasing memories just seemed fundamentally _wrong_ on a level she couldn't quite express. Like it was breaking some unspoken Rule, one so intrinsic to civilised society no one really thought of it. It just seemed _more_ wrong when the memories in question belonged to her new little cousin who was, to be completely honest with herself for a second here, rather adorable. But there Mum was, calmly sitting, the slightest of grins on her face. 'Well. There goes that, then. Sorry for being all sneaky. Strictly speaking, you're not supposed to know.'

With a little nod, Jasmine said, 'I thought I'd check if you were, just to make sure Mum isn't slowly going mad or something.'

Someone who didn't know her as well probably wouldn't be able to tell, but Charissa knew instantly Mum was trying very, very hard not to laugh. 'How proactive of you.'

'I choose to take that as a compliment.' Once again, Charissa got the weird impression that Jasmine really didn't talk like someone her age should. But then, the same thing could be said of Charissa, so maybe she shouldn't be so surprised.

'You should,' Mum said, still smiling. 'It was one.'

Jasmine just grinned at her for a second. She did that a lot. 'I know I'm not supposed to know, though. That's why I didn't say anything to Mum. Well, that, and I don't think she likes magic very much.'

'Really?'

Suddenly, the constant grin was wiped off Jasmine's face, and her eyes were flicking between the two of them, wearing a sort of awkward, hesitant awkward expression. 'Well. You know. Bible stuff. It's not, you know, all the time, but she'll talk about magic being evil and stuff.'

Mum was silent for maybe two seconds, then said. ' _There shall not be found among you any one that makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that uses divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer._ Did I remember that right?'

'That sounds like the one in Deuteronomy, yeah. There's also that line in Exodus, _Thou shalt not_...erm...'

Her lips twitching again, Mum said, 'It's okay, Jasmine, I know what it says.'

Charissa didn't. She had no idea what they were talking about. What were they quoting from? Were those two odd words Greek? They kind of sounded like Greek. Badly pronounced Greek, but still vaguely Greek.

'The one in Deuteronomy is funny in retrospect. The bit about passing through fire doesn't even have anything to do with magic — it's a reference to a religion that was really popular at the time.'

Jasmine hesitated for a second, then said, 'Mazdaism?'

For a moment, Mum blinked, looking faintly surprised. 'Yep, that's it.' It looked like Jasmine might have been about to say something, not that Charissa knew what — none of this was making sense to her — but Mum went on before she could. 'I'm guessing you don't see it the way she does.'

'Well...' Jasmine trailed off, biting her lip. 'This is gonna sound weird.'

'I'm listening.'

She hesitated a little longer, frowning at the table, long enough Charissa started thinking she wouldn't get it out before Petunia got back. 'You know how God created everything and all, right?'

Charissa frowned a little. 'Huh?'

Now they both turned to her, as though suddenly remembering she was there — Jasmine looked confused, but Mum was just giving her an exasperated sort of look. 'Religion, Charissa. We're talking about religion.'

'Oh.' Well, _that_ would explain why she hadn't understood a word for a couple minutes now.

'You were saying?' Mum said, turning back to Jasmine.

'Yeah. Well. He also knows everything that's going to happen. Bible says that, too.'

'Yes.'

'And that He loves everyone, wants everyone to be saved.'

'Yes.'

'Well, that's not possible.'

Mum raised an eyebrow at her. 'Oh?'

It looked like Jasmine was a bit uncomfortable, but she kept going anyway. Actually, she was talking faster than before, the words shoving themselves out in a rush of awkwardness. 'It's a contradiction, see, all three can't possibly occur at the same time. If God were all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving, things He didn't approve of wouldn't come to exist in the first place. Sin wouldn't exist. He just wouldn't let it. I mean, there's no reason the world _must_ be the way it is. If you know what I mean.'

'I know exactly what you mean,' Mum said, sending Jasmine a warm smile across the table. 'What you're talking about is called the _problem of evil_ — I recognised it myself, when I was twelve. I'm guessing you don't believe in God, then.'

Jasmine again hesitated for a short moment, before saying, 'I see that what I've been told is inconsistent. That's not the same thing.'

'True.'

Thankfully, that was it for that topic. Anything else they had to talk about might be awkward or boring — especially after Petunia got back and they had to pretend Jasmine didn't know about magic again — but at least she understood what they were talking about.

* * *

Charissa stopped, just outside the gate. She spun on her heel to face Mum, crossing her arms over her chest, and said, 'You haven't told me yet.'

For a few seconds, Mum just blinked at her. Since she'd seen Mum tired so many times, it was instantly obvious to her she was exhausted. She was still recovering, and it'd been something of a long day — comparatively speaking, anyway — so she guessed that wasn't so surprising. 'Haven't told you what?'

'Why it was important we have dinner with Aunt Petunia and Jasmine.'

'Right. That.' Mum closed her eyes. She drew in a long breath, let it out as an even longer sigh. Then she pulled out her wand and, with a wave, conjured two chairs for them to sit in, right there in the middle of the path to Hogwarts. Frowning with curiosity, Charissa settled herself on the little, poofy chair, silently waiting. Mum didn't stall for long. 'As you probably figured out at some point, I dropped by their house yesterday. I couldn't stay for long — turned out they had plans — but I was there long enough to get a good look at Jasmine and Violet. That's Jasmine's younger sister, Violet.'

Charissa shook her head to herself, feeling the smirk on her own face.

'What?'

'I just noticed, is all,' she said, shrugging a little. 'Lily. Petunia. Jasmine. Violet.'

Mum's lips were twisted into a crooked sort of smirk. 'Yes, something of a family tradition. Girls named after flowers, boys named after trees. I didn't name you, but I did name your brothers. Linden from limes, Perry from pears. But anyway, when I saw them, I noticed almost immediately. They're witches.'

Erm.

Wow.

Okay.

Charissa's muggle cousins were...not muggles. That was— Well, she wasn't entirely sure what that was. She had absolutely no idea how to process that. For a few seconds, she just stared at Mum, who just stared back, entirely unsure of what to say. Eventually, she thought of something at least a little coherent. 'Are you sure? I mean, is that even something you can tell just looking at someone?'

With a shrug, Mum said, 'If you're sensitive enough, sure. _You_ couldn't, certainly — at your age, you're not nearly powerful enough. I doubt it's something _most_ people could do, to be honest. But even so, I wasn't entirely confident, so I dropped by Education.' She meant the Department of Education offices, Charissa knew, in the Ministry. 'Checked the Hogwarts student list for next year, and there she was. Violet's on the list too, a few years out. I talked to a couple people there, and now she'll just get a letter, not the visit from a Ministry rep muggleborns usually get. Because we're going to be there when the letter arrives. You'll be out of school for Gwēfeð on her birthday, so you're coming too.'

Well. That was going to be fun. From what she understood of what Jasmine had said about how Petunia felt about magic, this was going to be really fun. After a second of thought, sitting there in silence, Charissa put together what was really going on — why Lily had brought Charissa to meet them, why Charissa needed to be there when the letter came. 'You want me to look out for her. When she's here.'

Without even the slightest bit of prevarication, Mum said, 'Yes. If she knows you at least a little bit, she'll be more willing to come to you if she has problems here.' She glanced up toward the castle with the last couple words. 'Being muggleborn can be hard enough, even without parents who might not be the most supportive. Part of the reason I'm trying to get along with Petunia better is because I miss her — I wasn't lying when I said that. But yesterday changed things a little. It may very well be that Jasmine and Violet will need someone on their side very badly. I intend to be there. I'm hoping you'll help too.'

This was going to be a pain. She knew it immediately. Somehow, all of this was just going to be trouble. At some point, Jasmine or Violet or maybe both of them were going to make things very difficult for her. It wouldn't even necessarily be their fault — the way some people were, it was just inevitable. But what was she going to do? say no? Like she'd actually say no to anything Mum asked her to do. As long as the anything in question was reasonable, and not asked just to tease her or something.

Sometimes she thought she might be too nice.

But then she remembered that she wasn't really nice at all to most people.

Charissa let out a sigh, trying to make herself sound more exasperated than she really was. 'I liked Jasmine fine, I guess. I can make sure she doesn't get into too much trouble.'

Apparently, Mum had nothing further to say on the topic, no comment on how reluctantly Charissa had agreed — though that was mostly faking just to play around anyway. Which Mum surely knew, but Charissa would have expected her to say something about it anyway. But she didn't.

Mum only smiled.

* * *

Marathi _— A people in real life. Not written with a thorn because it isn't a "th" sound — the use of thorn and eth is determined by pronunciation. This is an aspirated retroflex stop, totally different._

 _Meðwlix að nVēseg ([mɛ.ðʉ.lɪ.xað.β̃ø.sɛk], but just "meh-thoo-lih hath voh-sehk" is fine for non-nerds) — made up title for an in-universe ethical treatise. The title was made by looking up "on ethics" in Welsh (meddwl am foeseg), and playing with it to make it, uh, supposedly Brīþwn. Probably not accurate, but the language isn't well-attested, and this would have been written centuries after it stopped being spoken irl anyway, so I DO WHAT I WANT :P_

 _darþanoĭo (δαρθάνοιο) — Hey, I did Greek again. Ancient Greek this time. I hope that transliteration makes sense. The ĭ is basically a "y" sound, but I couldn't actually write y because that's a vowel in Greek, and I couldn't write the IPA character j because that would just confuse too many people. Bleh. The theta is written as a thorn this time because it's from Charissa's POV. It's basically just the second-person optative for "sleep"._

 _Mazdaism — A religion in real life, also called Zoroastrianism._

 _Gwēfeð ([ɣwø.ϕɛð], roughly "gwoh-feth") — Made up word, smashed together from the Welsh words for "dawn" and "four" (gwawr and pedwar). Modern Brīþwn term for the vernal equinox._

* * *

 _No, in case you're wondering, I didn't have Petunia marry Dursley. Because, seriously, who the fuck would ever marry Dursley?_

 _Anyone who thinks ten or even twelve years old is too young to recognize the problem of evil, go ahead and explain that to my seven-year-old self. My own Catholic-ness died a slow, decade-long death after that. And I know having that discussion in there might seem a bit intentionally provocative to some — I **almost** replaced it for that reason — but there is a purpose behind its inclusion. It'll come up later. Uh, **much** later.  
_

 _Until next time,_

 _~Wings_


	6. First Year — September 22nd

Charissa was so tired she didn't remember her half-formed plan until just as she was about to crawl into bed.

She stood next to her bed for long seconds, staring down at the mattress, thoughts of Granger and Mum and Jasmine flickering around in her head. Eventually she glanced out into the rest of the room. Morag was there, already stripped to the slip she usually wore to bed, sleepily braiding her hair into place. As was becoming increasingly common, Granger hadn't even bothered coming to their room. Charissa suspected the bed would be too tempting. For some absurd reason, Granger apparently thought she needed to read herself to death, and getting too comfortable anywhere probably wasn't helpful. She looked at Morag for a second, then Granger's empty bed.

She sighed. Muirgen curse it all.

Grabbing the dressing gown she kept hanging off the corner of her bed, she asked, 'Did you see Granger coming in?'

Morag paused in mid-braiding, frowning. 'Yeah. She's reading in the common room.'

'Great. Put your gown on.' Charissa tied hers shut, grabbed her wand, reached to slip it into a pocket. Then hesitated. She was having an idea, an idea inspired by watching Dora. Normally, watching Dora wasn't generally a way to get _good_ ideas, but she thought this might be an exception. She slipped her wand up her sleeve, base first, tilted it so the tip rested against her wrist, just under her thumb. It was kind of awkward, holding it balanced like that, and she had to hold her arm uncomfortably still, but she thought it should stay — at least long enough for what she had planned.

Though she had a confused sort of look on her face, Morag didn't argue. Or even ask what Charissa was going to do. In a moment she was more presentable — she always had a dressing gown at her bedside too, since their room wasn't directly connected to the one hosting the nearest toilet — and waiting for Charissa to act. So she did, leaving the room and slipping down the stairs, moving slowly and smoothly so she didn't drop her wand.

Morag hadn't been wrong: there Granger was, at one of the tables by the window. It was dark in that corner of the common room at this time of night, but Granger had evidently solved that problem. Despite herself, Charissa couldn't help feeling a bit impressed and intrigued by exactly _how_ she had solved that problem. Granger's entire little nook was filled with a soft, blue-white light, a light that flickered and danced as though from a fire. Because it _was_ from a fire — just not a normal fire. Standing atop two books in the center of her table was a large-ish glass jar, filled nearly to the brim with flickering, shimmering flames of a bright, soothing blue. Charissa recognised the magic instantly — a form of specially conjured fire that burned only what and how much the caster desired it to — and while she didn't think it was exceptionally difficult magic, since she had seen more than one person cast it wandlessly, she didn't think it was something first years would be expected to be capable of either. It was so amazingly pretty, and for a second all she could do was stare at it. She needed to ask Granger to teach her that later.

That is, if Granger would still be willing to speak with her later.

Charissa made straight for Granger's table, Morag at her heals. Just as she came to a stop, barely an arm's length away, she said, 'Granger.'

With a heavy start, Granger straightened in her seat, head jerking up to meet her eyes. 'Potter.' Her gaze flicked to Morag for a second, but she must have marked her as an observer, since she didn't say anything to her, just turning back to Charissa. 'What is it?'

For a second, she considered being gentle about it, maybe starting with a question on how she was doing, gradually turn it around to asking about the whole sleeplessness issue. But only for a second. 'You're not sleeping enough.'

Granger frowned, eyes narrowing, making the dark circles around them even more obvious in the flickering light. 'Whether or not you think I'm sleeping enough or not doesn't sound like your problem.'

Yeah. She'd expected something like that. Earlier in the term, Granger probably would have deflected a bit more politely than that, but it must have been obvious to everyone paying attention that her patience was wearing increasingly thin for anything that didn't involve words on a page and the absorbing of them. This didn't surprise her at all. Which meant it was time for the plan Mum had given her. Charissa let out a long sigh, trying to sound as casual as possible. 'I really wish I could change your mind.'

'I just don't see how it's your business.' The concentration she'd allotted for Charissa must have run out, because her eyes tilted back down to the book, as though she intended to go back to reading.

'I know you don't. I guess it isn't, really.' With a twitch of her wrist, Charissa let her wand fall into her hand. 'So I guess I just have to hope that, when you're all rested and thinking clearly, you'll forgive me.'

Granger looked up, a confused cast to her features, her lips twisted to form words that never came. She froze, just on the edge of speaking, her eyes widening as she noticed Charissa's wand, and exactly where it was pointed. Her hand started reaching for her own.

But she was much, much too slow. ' _Darþanoĭo_.'

For a second there, Charissa didn't think it was going to work. Granger did slump further into her seat, her eyelids fluttering half-closed, but her eyes beneath were steady on Charissa, her jaw set with furious defiance. The charm wavered, Granger and Charissa fighting a battle of power and will neither of them were entirely conscious of — Charissa only really noticed the intense tingling spreading up her wand arm, the sudden light giddiness springing to life in her head and in her chest. But after a short moment, the tingling vanished, and Granger collapsed against the table, blissfully unconscious. The fire in the jar gradually darkened, turning a deeper, murkier purple, before sputtering out completely a couple seconds later.

Charissa let out a breath, frowning to herself. What was _that_? She'd never felt anything like that before. She'd gotten tingling in her fingers a few times doing magic, but nothing so powerful as that, and certainly never so high — the uncomfortable, skittering feeling within her had almost reached her shoulder! And while the tingles had vanished as soon as her charm took effect, the odd giddiness inside hadn't. It had diminished a little, sure, but she still felt... _weird_. Warmer than she should be, almost flushed. And though she'd been tired a minute ago, now she felt quite suddenly awake. Like fire had been deposited in her veins, and she had more energy than her body knew what to do with. As odd as it sounded, she felt more _alive_ than usual. Her skin a touch more sensitive, colours more vibrant, her very body seeming more animate in an almost tactile way, as though she could sense the life creeping through her.

Not to say that she wasn't sleepy anymore. Underneath all this oddness, she could still tell she needed sleep, and she was sure all this wouldn't interfere with her ability to get it. It was like she was sleepy and stimulated at the same time. It made absolutely no sense.

But she decided it felt _amazing_. She loved this feeling instantly.

Which, a second later, made her a bit suspicious. Maybe she should ask someone about this. Go to Flitwick, or maybe write her Mum. On second thought, definitely her Mum — she suspected Flitwick might just tell her to ask her parents anyway. She couldn't write a letter right now, of course, it was much too late for that. She would have to remember.

But, _wow_.

'You okay?'

She blinked. That was Morag, still standing next to her. It was possible she'd lost track of her surroundings a little bit. 'Oh, yes. Just, erm, girl's really powerful is all.' That sounded like a reasonable explanation anyway. 'Help me get her upstairs?'

'Yeah, sure.'

The obvious thing to do would be to use some quick magic to make Granger lighter — the extremely handy featherlight charm they'd learnt in class just this week would be quite useful for that. She hesitated a moment before casting it. She'd just got a rather weird reaction casting magic a second ago, and she wasn't positive something weird wouldn't happen again. Or if it were even safe to use magic again so soon afterward. Oh, well. If something went wrong, there were people not too far away who could help. She needn't have worried — she cast the spell perfectly smoothly, reducing Granger to a weight the two of them could carry with little effort, done with no further amplification of her weird symptoms.

Before long, ignoring all the suspicious looks they got on the way, they had Granger upstairs and settled into bed. Charissa had considered changing her out of her school robes and into those pyjamas she always wore, but decided against it. That seemed like far too much of an invasion of privacy. Granger would already be angry at her when she woke up, and she didn't see any reason to make it any worse. She cast the sleeping charm on Granger once more for good measure — Mum had said casting it multiple times held no risk of ill effects, only made sure she wouldn't wake up immediately — then headed toward her own bed.

'You know,' Morag muttered from her bed, 'she's going to hex you in the morning.'

Charissa shucked off her dressing gown, put out the lights with a wave of her wand, and crawled into bed herself. 'You don't know that.'

'It's what I would do.'

She thought about that for a moment. Yeah. Yeah, that's probably what Morag would do. Actually, it's probably what Charissa would do, too. Not that she actually knew all that many good jinxes or hexes yet, but she'd come up with something. Granger, though... Maybe should have thought that part through better. 'Well, at least she'll be well-rested when she does.'

Morag sniggered at that, her laughter soft and quiet in the dark.

* * *

On waking, Hermione was immediately confused. Why she was confused was immediately obvious — or at least would be to anyone who knew her at all.

She didn't remember getting here.

As much as she hadn't been able to fully convince her classmates back home she was telling the truth, her memory wasn't _perfect_. There were holes and flaws like everyone else's — just smaller flaws. With few exceptions, she could remember every single second of her life, with a little fuzzy boundary along each time she fell asleep, and a longer fuzzy boundary between roughly the age of twenty-seven months, before which she remembered nothing, and shortly after her fourth birthday, after which she remembered mostly everything. There _were_ holes. If she wasn't particularly paying attention to something, she wouldn't necessarily remember it later — just whatever she happened to be focusing on at the time. She could generally only remember facts if she remembered _where and when_ she'd learnt them. Basically, half of her brain flipped back to that place and time, listened to the bit of knowledge being spoken or read the page it was written on all over again. She didn't do that with everything — if it were something she used often or she thought especially interesting or useful she wouldn't need to — and there was a delay until she could track down what she was looking for — she had been getting gradually better at sorting for the right memory, but she still wasn't perfect. But it was still usually enough to convince people, often unintentionally, that she had perfect recall of absolutely everything.

Recently she'd been having more blank spots, blocks of time vanished from reality completely. Mostly walking from one classroom to another, or sitting somewhere barely held from the edge of sleep, so unfocused on her surroundings that she couldn't remember those minutes at all afterward. Which she didn't exactly _like_ , but she'd been trying to avoid thinking about that.

And, yes, there was a blurry window before every time she went to sleep. But the blurry part wasn't that long — she always remembered getting into bed. Or wherever she'd happened to fall asleep that particular time. So it was especially confusing that she had just woken up, in bed, and didn't remember getting here.

When she'd been around seven or eight or so — old enough she'd gotten used to remembering anything, but young enough for it to still bother her so much — waking up somewhere other than when she'd fallen asleep had _seriously_ unnerved her. Her parents had moved her to bed enough times she'd mostly gotten used to that situation. But, this situation wasn't that situation — she was at Hogwarts. _Her parents weren't here_. So what exactly had happened?

It took her a couple seconds to remember. She couldn't remember it perfectly clearly. It got pretty fuzzy at the end. She'd been sitting in the common room, reading from a history of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Ingham — honestly, most of the nobles she'd met she didn't exactly like too much, and she wasn't sure how comfortable she was with the concept of a ruling aristocracy _at all,_ but some of the history was just so fascinating that she couldn't help herself — when Charissa and Morag, who were still insisting on using last names with her for reasons she still didn't fully understand, had come up to talk to her. Charissa had done the talking, saying Hermione wasn't sleeping enough. Which Hermione really didn't think was any business of hers, and she'd said so. And then... And then she couldn't really remember what—

With sudden stiffness, she snapped up to sitting in bed. Charissa had drawn her wand on her! She'd done something to her! She couldn't remember what had happened, or even the incantation, but she knew that had to have been what happened. The very fact that she couldn't remember probably meant the spell had been one to put her to sleep. Charissa had forced her to sleep, then dragged her upstairs and put her in bed.

She had never felt more violated in her life.

Sneering taunts ringing in her ears, mostly from Slytherin throats, one in particular Charissa had identified as her cousin—

And she was _angry_. She was very, _very angry_. So angry her throat didn't seem to be working right, so angry her fingers were all clumsy, so angry she could taste it — though she wouldn't be able to describe exactly what anger tasted like. She just couldn't _believe_ her.

It was dark in their room, she noticed, so she glanced at the mechanical little alarm clock she'd had to buy. It was early, before sunrise, much earlier than people would be getting up — especially on a Saturday. Well, if Charissa had taken it upon herself to _force Hermione to sleep_ , it was only fair for Hermione to _wake her up_.

A few seconds later, she'd found her wand — to her panic, not in the pocket of her robes, where she'd expected to find it, but on one of the tables at the side of her bed, to her instant relief — and was standing above Charissa's bed. For a moment she hesitated, for two reasons. One, this was _definitely_ against the rules, and she really shouldn't be doing it. Two, she'd noticed before Charissa didn't exactly wear very much to bed — neither did Morag, really, and they were both, erm, way less _shy_ than she was used to — so this could quickly get pretty awkward. But her hesitation didn't last very long. If she were in a more clear state of mind, she might have reconsidered, but she was simply too angry at the moment to care.

She took aim for a spot where Charissa's shoulder was visible past the sheets, drew her magic into readiness, a process of partial meditation that was becoming more and more second nature. ' _Pelle_ ,' she grit through her teeth, a flash of white-yellow light immediately striking as she commanded. Charissa instantly jolted awake, but Hermione didn't stop. She kept casting her basic stinging jinx, hitting Charissa again and again, some going wide as she scrambled against the headboard.

'No, don't!' said Charissa, holding her palm out in a sign of restraint. Hermione suddenly petered to a stop, but not because she was doing what she was told. She was just confused. Because Charissa hadn't been telling _her_ to do or not do anything. Her palm was pointed behind Hermione, to her side.

She glanced over her shoulder. Morag was out of bed, in nothing but that slip of hers, her wand in her hand and halfway to pointed at Hermione.

...

Huh.

Charissa spoke again, piercing the awkward silence. 'Could you give us a minute, Morag?' For a few seconds, the other girl didn't move, her eyes flicking between the two of them. Finally, she shrugged on her gown and left the room, the door snapping closed behind her. Before Hermione could do anything, Charissa said, in that flat voice of hers, 'I'm not apologising.'

The words brought another flush of fury, burning away what was left of confusion. 'You don't think you have anything to apologise _for_? I lost _eight hours_!' She didn't expect that to make sense to Charissa, she wasn't sure it made sense to _herself_ , but she didn't know how else to say it. She had _so much to do_ , and she'd lost _eight hours_.

Charissa stared at her, uncomfortably still, her unnervingly steady eyes narrowed slightly with a frown. 'Eight hours?'

'Yes! Nine thirty to five thirty! Eight hours!' To Hermione's confusion, Charissa suddenly looked extremely uncomfortable. Her eyes flicked away from Hermione, her bare shoulder shifted. It was just...weird. And Hermione suddenly had the weirdest suspicion. 'It was eight hours, wasn't it?'

'Erm...' Charissa stalled, scratching at her own wrist, staring off at the wall. 'Granger, I—'

'Wasn't it?'

Her face showing the slightest signs of a grimace, Charissa said, 'It's Sunday.'

Sunday? But yesterday was Friday. But that would—

But that would mean—

But—

' _Pelle! Pelle! Pelle pelle pelle pellepellepellePELLEPELLE_ —'

Hermione had no idea how long she cast, how many times. She just did it, over and over and over. Forcing as much magic and as much of her anger down her arm as she could, forcing it at Charissa. She had never been so angry in her _life_ , and it certainly didn't help she was feeling a sinking sense of despair at the same time. It hadn't been eight hours — it'd been _thirty-two_! Thirty-two hours _wasted_! How was she going to catch up now? She was _so far behind_ and this _mean_ noble girl had _forced her to sleep_ and she'd lost _so much time_ and—

The rush of fury and magic cut off when her vision was suddenly blocked, a cotton sheet draped over her head. She blinked in the tight darkness, temporarily disoriented, almost even dizzy, as the storm she'd gotten caught up in broke. When she came back to herself, she pulled the sheet off of her. Revealing Charissa, kneeling on her bed, wand pointed straight at Hermione in a somewhat shaking grip, gasping and glaring at her.

Charissa must have levitated the bed sheet up over Hermione's head to get her to stop. Despite herself, Hermione felt a little impressed — levitating something that big and in that particular shape deftly enough to drape over her really couldn't have been easy.

And Hermione instantly felt really guilty. Since Charissa really wore very little to bed — just those anachronistic-looking knickers native magical people apparently wore, since they apparently didn't have elastic — it was immediately obvious how much damage her barrage of stinging jinxes had done. Charissa was pink pretty much all over, even red in a couple places, and Hermione had absolutely no doubt it hurt. She immediately regretted her outburst. She really, _really_ shouldn't have done that. For one thing, it was against the rules, so _very_ much against the rules. For another, well, being able to vividly remember every single time she'd ever gotten hurt made her rather more reluctant to hurt other people than she figured most kids her age were. Far as she could tell, anyway. She guessed she wasn't really sure how other people felt, so maybe she was completely wrong.

'I'm sorry.' The words fell out without making any conscious decision to say them. She was, of course — though what little of her earlier rage was still floating around kept telling her she _shouldn't_ be. She just hadn't chosen to say it yet. And she should have said it, she didn't know, better?

Charissa didn't say anything. Just stared, still breathing heavily. Somehow, Hermione knew Charissa was restraining herself from jinxing her back, so she tried to make herself look as contrite as possible, which...she honestly wasn't entirely sure how to do. Maybe Charissa could tell if she just thought it hard enough?

When some seconds went by and Charissa still hadn't said or done anything, Hermione cautiously moved forward, stepping around the side of Charissa's bed. The spell Hermione needed had already popped into her head a little bit ago. Once she was close enough, she started into the proper motions, the incantation already on her lips.

But before she could start, Charissa had already given her wrist a backhanded slap, forcing her hand wide. 'What do you think you're doing?'

Hermione swallowed. She couldn't help it — her instant reaction to anger or disappointment on any voice was dread or shame, depending on context. It was automatic. But she forced it off as best she could. 'Healing spell I learnt. Really simple, only enough for mild inflammation like this.'

For a couple seconds, Charissa just stared at her, as though trying to decide if she were telling the truth or not. Then she sighed. Tipping from her knees to sitting, her wand hand falling to her bed, she shrugged. 'Do it, then, I guess.'

It took quite a few castings of the spell to undo the damage she'd done, since Hermione could really only handle a few square inches at a time. After just a couple of them, though, Charissa had let out a low moan of relief, scenes of her parents kneading each other's shoulders and such flicking through Hermione's head. The other girl collapsed backward to lying down, waiting silently for Hermione to get her minor healing done. Well, mostly silently, anyway — she verbally reacted to individual spells a couple more times, but other than that.

By the time Hermione was finished, she was a bit uncomfortable. For one thing, she'd just done quite a bit of magic. Not that one of those individual spells had taken all that much, but add them all up and that was quite a bit of energy she'd just channeled. At least, for someone as new to using magic as she was. Her fingers were all tingly, her wrist twitching a little. And for the other, that whole process had been extremely awkward. Since she'd needed to watch what she was doing to direct her little healing spells, it had been impossible to ignore the fact that Charissa was _almost completely naked right now_. She'd gathered already from both her reading and direct observation that magical people, at least in this country, were much less, erm...modest? prudish? She wasn't sure what word was appropriate. Suffice to say, there were a number of differences between the magical and non-magical cultures of Britain, which was likely why Charissa now seemed completely at ease while Hermione was pretty sure her face had never been redder in her life.

At least it distracted her from being angry, she guessed. She didn't like being angry.

Some moments later, Hermione wasn't sure how long, Charissa let out with a long sigh, 'Okay.' Another breath, and, 'Let's not do that next time.'

Hermione blinked and, despite how uncomfortable it made her, turned back to look down at Charissa. She was still lying there, eyes closed and unmoving. 'What do you mean, next time?'

'Look, Granger, I know you're—'

'Why do you keep using my last name all the time?'

Charissa's eyes slid open, flicked over to hers, a slightly confused sort of look on her face. 'Erm, it's a politeness thing, I guess. Not overreaching. If that makes sense.'

She thought it maybe did. One of those weird cultural things going on in some of the more stratified societies — the use of first names being restricted to the more personal relationships, so not wanting to be too presumptuous by using more intimate language, avoiding potentially causing offense. She somehow hadn't known that was common practice here, which really explained a lot. She understood it, she guessed, but that didn't make it not weird. _Adults_ got called by their last names, not kids. 'Could we not? It just feels so strange to me.'

Charissa gave her another weird look, but shrugged. 'Alright. I do sort of remember my mother saying something like that before.'

It took a second for Hermione to figure out what she was talking about but, once she did, she was suddenly really confused. Back on the train, Charissa had said her mother was from a non-magical family. How had Hermione _forgotten_ that? Her first assumption had been that Charissa was just being mean to her because of their weird form of racism they had going on, like her cousin was, but now she wasn't entirely sure.

'But as I was saying—' Hermione forcibly turned herself away from her thoughts, back to the conversation she'd almost lost track of. '—I know you've been having trouble with sleeping and all. But you're not doing yourself any favours. Imploding before the end of the semester isn't really going to do you any good.'

'So, what are you suggesting? You magic me to sleep every night, so I get enough whether I want to or not?'

'Something like that.'

Hermione just stared down at her for some seconds. She'd said that as a _joke_. What was wrong with this girl? 'You're serious.'

'No, that's my uncle.'

'What?'

'Yes, I'm serious.'

That was... That was _odd,_ to say the least. Using magic on other students like that was against the rules in the first place. Hermione allowed that if Charissa could frame it as helping her it could probably be considered an exception, but that didn't really stop it from being odd. For another point, she wasn't really sure why Charissa cared one way or the other. She would just ask, but she wasn't sure she would get an honest answer anyway — she'd noticed years ago that other kids could be confusingly evasive about their motivations for doing things — so she decided to ignore that for now. But neither of those were her real problem with the idea. They were strange, certainly, but not her largest objection.

She was _so far behind_. If she slept like everyone else, she would stay that way. She wasn't stupid, she knew what she was doing wasn't good for her, but she _couldn't_ stop. There simply weren't enough hours in the day, and she needed to catch up. She'd work out a better schedule. Sleep a reasonable span every other day, maybe? She knew her father had done something sort of like that when he'd been in college. Sure, she guessed the proposition was a bit more extreme for a twelve-year-old than someone the age he'd been, but that still meant it was _possible_. That would be better than nothing, she thought, maybe even enough to catch up eventually. _Maybe_. But she couldn't just—

'Hermione,' said Charissa, the voice startling her out of her thoughts. Or maybe it was the exasperated tone that had down the startling, or just the fact that she wasn't sure Charissa had ever actually used her first name before. 'What's got you panicking so bad? _ð'Vurgen_ , it's only the third week of first year.'

'But I'm behind.'

For a few seconds, Charissa just blinked at her, frowning a little. 'What?'

She wasn't even entirely sure what came out of her mouth. She knew she was talking, because she could feel and hear it, but she wasn't really paying attention to it. All she could think about was her own frustration and desperation, that she had only known magic _even existed_ for not even a year, that there were _thousands of years_ of history she had to learn, that there was an _entire new culture_ she had to adapt to, a world of _entirely different_ peoples and languages and creatures and technologies she knew nothing about she had to catch up on, and there were only _so many hours_ in a day and she was already _so far behind_ just because she hadn't been raised magical and she had _absolutely no idea_ how she was ever ever _ever_ going to catch up she had _way too much_ to learn and—

For the second time, she was cut off as her surroundings suddenly disappeared, blocked by Charissa's sheet over her head. She whipped the cloth off her head as quickly as she could, glared down at the other girl. Who was smirking at her. 'Stop that!'

'No, it's too fun.' Hermione was going to yell at her for that, but Charissa cut her off. 'What was that book you were reading when I got to you?'

The memory came to her instantly. ' _Rise and Fall of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Ingham._ ' So called, she knew, because House Ingham had once been among the more powerful of British families, until a feud with a Black–Rosier–Selwyn alliance back in the eighteenth century had largely crippled them. They still existed, one of only six extant Ancient Houses, but weren't nearly what they once were.

'Right,' Charissa said with a nod. 'Do you know how much I know about House Ingham?'

'Well, I—'

But Charissa interrupted her again. 'One of the Ancient Houses, currently led by Lord Kenneth Ingham. By what my dad has said of him, Lord Ingham almost always votes with the nationalists, allied with a couple of those Houses. He has a daughter, Ainsley, who I _think_ is a third year Slytherin, and an older son I really can't remember anything about. Pretty sure we're fifth or sixth cousins or something through the Bulstrodes. They're wealthy, but not crazy wealthy. And that's it.'

Hermione wasn't sure if she should believe that. The thought that she already knew more about something like this than someone raised magical — especially someone from another Noble House who happened to be _related_ to the House in question, no matter how distantly — was utterly strange to her. This was definitely the kind of thing she would expect Charissa to know about. She didn't think she was going _that_ overboard. 'Really.'

'Yes. And what was that book I caught you sleeping on in the library?'

' _The Decline of Pagan Magic_.'

'Right. Okay, I don't know shite about pagan magic or whatever. I've met the author of the thing — before my grandparents died we lived just a couple houses down from her — but I've never read most anything she's written. Not even entirely sure what it means by _pagan magic_ ,' she added with a little shrug. 'My guess is the native European traditions before west Asian wand magic made its way here, but it's just that — a guess.'

This was _weird_. She wasn't sure what was going on anymore. For long seconds, she stared down at the other girl, but Charissa had closed her eyes again, lying completely unmoved. This was so confusing. 'I don't get it.'

'What I'm trying to say, Hermione, is you're not nearly as far behind as you think you are. Keep up with classes, read up on the more interesting stuff for fun if you want, but if there's something _specific_ going on that you don't understand, just _ask someone_. Someone who isn't a pureblood supremacist, I mean. There's really no reason to kill yourself over things most people don't know anything about anyway.'

Hermione had absolutely no idea how to respond to that.

But, before she'd even consciously processed whatever was going on in her head, she was already falling into a withering feeling of relief.

* * *

 _Aþxam—_

 _Next time you tell me to jinx someone, maybe teach me a shield first, just in case ðey don't take it too well. Lots of fun I just had._

 _..._

* * *

 _Dear Mum and Dad,_

 _This is going to sound really weird, but I think I made a friend today._

 _..._

* * *

Hermione's memory _— In case you're curious, Hermione has a case of exceptional memory that is more or less hyperthymesia. Not **exactly** like hyperthymesia, but something very similar — so if you're about to tell me I'm not depicting the condition correctly, I know, I'm not really trying to. Of course, I can't actually use the term hyperthymesia in text anyway, since the first case was only described in 2006._

 _pelle — second-person imperative for "to push, strike"_

 _ð'Vurgen (IPA: [ðβ̃ʊr̪.ɟɛ̃n], roughly "th-vur-ghen") — Very low-level expletive oath -type thing. A contraction of something like "by Muirgen" in Brīþwn. The spelling of Muirgen is changed to "Murgen," but it's pronounced the same, just in Brīþwn orthography instead of Goidelic. Well, the initial mutation actually makes it_ Vurgen _instead, but you get the point._

 _Ancient Houses — The Noble Houses who were directly represented in Myrðin's original council way back when. Originally numbering seventeen, by the time of this story only six are extant as formal entities — Black, Bones, Gaunt, Ingham, Longbottom, and Monroe. Three of those six — Bones, Gaunt, and Monroe (and **almost** Black) — have been reduced to a single family, and Longbottom is the only one with more than a dozen or so people._

 _aþxam (IPA: [əθ.çɑm], roughly "ath-hahm") — Another Brīþwn contraction, this time meaning "to (my) mother."_

 _ðey — The observant might notice that Charissa spelled this word differently than Lily did, one with an eth and the other with a thorn. That is intentional. Lily spells all such words "correctly," reflecting historical etymology and orthography, while Charissa (and most children and even some adults) choose whether to use thorn or eth based on pronunciation. "Ðey" is correct for how it's pronounced, but "þey" is what you would most likely find in a dictionary._

* * *

 _Someone might be thinking, Hey, if Hermione was asleep practically a whole day, shouldn't she need to go to the bathroom? The previous day, Charissa and Morag were a little worried Hermione was sleeping so long, so got an older student, sixth year prefect, to check her. The prefect decided she was fine, but cast a Healer spell for such situations — use your imagination. I'm saying this because I was going to bring it up in their conversation, but decided it didn't naturally fit anywhere. Ha ha._

 _Alright. Enough babbling from me. See you next time._

 _~Wings_


	7. First Year — March 28th

'Do we _have_ to?'

Linden might have been being a bit whiny about it but, Charissa had to admit, she couldn't exactly disagree with the sentiment. There were a number of people she wouldn't mind visiting during her break from school. The Longbottoms or the Bonses or the Tonkses. She could see herself going to the MacDougals', but she was decently sure Morag would rather spend the time alone with her family, so she didn't bother asking. Even going to the Grangers' wouldn't be too bad — it could possibly be awkward dealing with her muggle parents, but Hermione herself was interesting to talk with, on the occasions Charissa managed to successfully pull her from whatever book she happened to be reading at the moment.

But today, they were all — Mum and Dad, herself and her brothers — going to a completely different muggle household. One which, after her sole visit around the solstice, hadn't exactly left her with a great impression. She liked Jasmine just fine. Violet was perfectly nice too, if a bit quiet. And her new Uncle Richard was, to her mild surprise, _really_ nice, with the kind of exaggerated energy and interest some people used with kids that at least meant they were trying. Which felt a bit condescending at times, but it wasn't that bad. She really hadn't expected that. Aunt Petunia, though, wasn't nice at all. Rather mean, actually.

'Yes, Linden,' Mum said, smoothing out his hair with a few flicks of her wand. 'We have to. You have no choice in the matter, and no amount of whining is going to change that.'

'But _why_?'

'Because I'm your mother, and I say so.' Her tone may have been slightly harsh, but the playful smirk on her face was clear, successfully taking a bit of the edge off.

Linden just let out a long sigh.

At that moment, Dad came walking into the living room, a Perry-shaped bundle slung over his shoulder. With exaggerated seriousness, he said to Mum, 'I found this left unattended upstairs. Does it perhaps belong to you, milady?'

From atop Dad's shoulder, behind his back, Charissa could hear a long, whining, ' _Daaaad!_ ' from Perry. By the way he was flailing, she was pretty sure he was pounding their father's back with little fists.

Mum let out a long humming noise, stroking her chin in apparent thought. 'Perhaps. Seems a little familiar, somehow.'

Perry switched to whining, ' _Muuuum!_ ' squirming all the harder. Charissa turned a little to hide her smirk, not wanting Perry to see it when Dad finally released him.

'Oh, put the poor boy down already, James. He's going to hurt himself at this rate.'

'Of course, love.' Charissa wasn't watching, but she heard the sounds of slight effort from Dad, then Perry's footsteps rapidly shooting over to where she knew Linden was waiting. She let a few more seconds pass, making sure she had her potentially aggravating amusement hidden away, before turning back to face her family.

Just in time to see Linden, an annoyed look on his face, ask, 'Do we have to pretend to be muggles again too?'

Mum hesitated for a second. 'At first, yes.'

By his expression, Linden was obviously confused by that. Perry probably would be too, but his face was still buried in Linden's shirt, probably hiding the redness to match his hair — only Perry had inherited their mother's hair colour — remaining from being held partially upside-down for a while. He could be shy like that. 'At first?'

Crouching down more to their level, Mum gave Linden a prodding sort of smile. 'Do you remember what day it is today?'

Linden still just looked confused. 'March twenty-eighth?'

'Well, yes, but I was thinking more the reason we're going to the Palmers' on this specific day.'

It took a second for Linden to remember. 'Cousin Jasmine's birthday?'

'Yes. Her eleventh birthday.'

Linden just stared at her, still confused, apparently not seeing the significance of that. Then his eyes suddenly widened, his mouth opening in surprise. 'Oh! Hogwarts letter? She's a witch?' That was enough to get even Perry's attention, turning his head enough out of Linden's shirt to look at Mum.

'Yes,' Mum said, with a nod and a wider smile, 'she is. Both of them are, Jasmine and Violet. Jasmine will be going to Hogwarts this year, and Violet will be in your year, Perry.' Charissa blinked — she hadn't known that last detail. It wasn't especially important, but still. 'As soon as the letter comes, you don't have to pretend anymore. We can't let them know before that, because it's the law. Understand?'

Both of her brothers nodded, looking suddenly serious. The two of them were both a bit particular about following the rules — Linden was developing something of a cruel pranking habit, she thought, but he'd yet to do something _explicitly_ against any rules he knew of. Hermione kind of reminded her of them sometimes.

'When they get to Hogwarts, they're going to be all alone. We're the only magical family they have, you see. So we have to look out for them. Because family looks out for each other, right?'

They gave her another grave couple of nods.

Mum wrapped both of them up in her arms at once, planting one quick kiss on each forehead. 'Good boys.' Then, with an abrupt popping noise, all three of them vanished.

For a second, Charissa was surprised, before realising Mum must have apparated them off. Must be time to go. A second later, Dad's hand fell on her shoulder, and their living room vanished, replaced by twisting, compressing darkness for an infinite instant.

And the world rushed back, Charissa deposited in a little, isolated blind spot between a brick wall and a long row of hedges, just a couple steps from Mum and her brothers. They paused a few seconds, giving the three children a moment to collect themselves. Charissa really didn't like apparating — Mum was planning to make a private Floo link between their house and the Palmers', but she couldn't well do that until she could explain what she was doing.

Actually, as Charissa understood it, putting a Floo link in a muggle home was illegal in the first place. Hence, _private_.

It only took a couple minutes from there to walk to the Palmers' house, the place almost indistinguishable among the variety of mostly-similar two storey houses lining every street in the near distance. Though Charissa suspected her difficulty telling them apart was because she was accustomed to the greater variety typical in magical architecture — Mum had mentioned she'd grown up in a place not too different than this, and she hadn't had any trouble. She'd noticed recently that muggles quite literally _couldn't_ build most of the mage-owned homes she'd seen, since they'd been expanded or altered all sorts of ways through magic, in some extreme cases even requiring enchantments to remain upright.

Just another reason the muggle world was boring, she guessed.

Soon, Mum was knocking on the door, answered almost immediately by Jasmine. The five of them were led inside, under a downpouring of rambling from her bouncing cousin, soon joined by Uncle Richard. Before too long, they were all gathered in the sitting room, Charissa quickly finding a place off in a corner she could sit and watch. She didn't really feel like talking much. But then, she hardly ever felt like talking much — especially when the conversation involved more than a couple people. It just made her vaguely uncomfortable, she couldn't explain exactly how. But that was fine. She could just watch and listen.

It was kind of interesting, listening to how Mum and Dad disguised the magical aspects of things they mentioned. Dad was apparently on the board of some corporation involved in some muggle industry Charissa didn't understand. Mum was apparently a police inspector — which Charissa thought was _something_ like the muggle equivalent, anyway. When Perry randomly mentioned Uncle Remus being ill at one point, Dad explained that Remus apparently had a muggle disease called lupus.

Charissa thought it was an almost hilarious coincidence that there just happened to be a muggle disease Dad could explain the werewolf thing away with with just that particular name.

She was starting to get bored, though. Nobody was really talking about anything that interesting. Maybe it would have been better if she'd brought a book. Though, now that she thought about it, any book she would have wanted to bring wouldn't have been anything she could let the Palmers see. Maybe Mum could have put some kind of charm on it? She didn't know.

Maybe an hour or so later, they were all squeezed around a table that really wasn't long enough eating a lunch Charissa couldn't quite identify. Mum had asked Jasmine what she wanted, then used the Palmers' telephone to call in an order to some place or another. She had no idea what this stuff was, but definitely not British food — the spices were all wrong. She thought it might be something south Asian? Whatever, it didn't matter. She ate it perfectly fine, so she guessed it didn't matter much where it originated from.

When lunch was over, her brothers and cousins were planning to go out to do...something, she wasn't sure. Knowing her brothers, run around like lunatics. But anyway, that was when it happened. From one of the nearby dining room windows, there was a sharp clicking against the glass. Charissa recognised the sound instantly — a post owl tapping the window for attention. That would be it, then. She instantly felt herself tense, chest and stomach clenching, making her wish quite suddenly she hadn't eaten so much. From what little she knew of Aunt Petunia, Charissa just _knew_ she wasn't going to react well to this. It was going to be very awkward.

The eager grins on her brothers' faces told her quite clearly they hadn't put that together at all.

In the silence — anticipatory for the Potters, confused for the Palmers — Mum stood, walked over to the window. After flicking a lock on the frame, she pushed it open a few inches, negotiated silently with the brown, feathery blur that was all Charissa could see of the owl from this angle. A moment later, she was closing the window, an envelope of thick parchment in her hand.

'Lily.' Charissa glanced at Aunt Petunia, completely unsurprised to see the sudden rage blossoming on her face. But she kept her voice low and cold, almost calm in spite of how much she obviously wanted to be screaming right now — that part, at least, Charissa hadn't expected. 'I told you to keep that away from my family.'

Uncle Richard was switching his gaze between Mum and his wife, giving the both of them an odd, confused look. 'Keep what away?' Oh, wow, he didn't know. But then, Charissa thought, of _course_ he didn't know. It would be illegal for Mum to have told him. And, from how Petunia was reacting to all this, and how Jasmine had said a half a year ago now she felt about magic, Charissa doubted she would have said anything. 'Where did that come from?'

It was Violet who answered, as Mum walked back toward the table, in the eager voice of childish innocence. 'There was an owl outside. It gave the letter to her.'

Petunia's face was turning red, her jaw clenched so hard it seemed a miracle to Charissa she managed to speak. 'Lily...'

'Petunia,' Mum said softly, raising an eyebrow back to her. 'Any post for me wouldn't come here — it goes to our home.' She stopped behind Jasmine's chair. 'This letter isn't for me.' And she held the envelope out, extending her arm over Jasmine's shoulder.

For a long moment, nothing happened. Uncle Richard was still staring in confusion, Aunt Petunia's face rapidly fading from red to white, Charissa's own family simply waiting — though Perry was bouncing in his seat a little. Jasmine was glancing between her parents and the envelope, seeming just as unsure as her father. But eventually she took the letter, turned it around in her hand. When she saw the seal on the back, she blinked, turned to look up at Mum, who just nodded at her. A peculiar sort of disbelief on her face, she popped the envelope open, pulled out a couple sheets of parchment.

Again, silence, as Jasmine read first one sheet, then the next. She cocked her head a little, frowning. A skeptical sort of tint to her voice, she said, 'It looks like I've been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.'

Before anyone else could react, Perry threw his arms up in the air. 'Yay, we can talk about magic now!' Dad gave him a crooked little smirk.

Uncle Richard was obviously about to say something to the idea of magic, but Mum preempted him. She'd already drawn her wand at some point, and now she gave two smooth, casual sort of waves. The first levitated the plates and utensils and glasses and the little cardboard boxes the food had come in, sending them drifting in a big circle a foot off the table. The second set the air ablaze with a gentle fog of multicoloured lights, softly sparkling above and around them.

The effects the simple if impressive display had on the Palmers were immediate and various. Violet was craning her neck around to look at the lights, mouth wide and eyes sparkling with wonder. Jasmine's eyes were flicking around at all the magic happening, a single eyebrow raised, giving it all a look that said very clearly to Charissa, _Huh_. Uncle Richard seemed to have no idea what to think at all, just staring, blinking in an oddly empty sort of way. Aunt Petunia, though, was now as white as a ghost, eyes wide and fingers shaking, obviously caught between fury and terror.

Which Charissa thought was a little silly. It was just magic. Not that big of a deal.

And suddenly Aunt Petunia was on her feet, glaring over at Mum. 'She's not going!'

Uncle Richard blinked at her, said, 'You knew about, er, this?'

'When I turned eleven,' Mum said, ignoring Petunia to keep a slight smile on Richard, still maintaining the levitation on the dishes, the lights in the air, 'a witch came to our house to tell us what I am. Petunia couldn't tell you even if she wanted — people without magic aren't to know about it — but now that Jasmine has that letter in her hand we're free to speak of it. I'm magic, James is magic, all of our children are. And so are Jasmine and Violet.'

'Both of us?' Jasmine asked, turning up to Mum, an eager grin suddenly replacing the weird look she'd been wearing before. Charissa noticed even Petunia seemed mollified by that, if only slightly. For some reason.

Mum, smiling down at her, nodded. 'Yes. Both of you.'

'You're sure?'

'Positive.'

'Oh, that's good, then.' Jasmine turned back to her letter, seeming much more pleased with the idea now.

Petunia just stood there before her chair, her mouth slowly working, no sound coming out. After a couple seconds, though, Richard spoke, an odd sort of tone on his voice. 'There's a whole school of magic, then.'

Charissa wasn't really sure what Richard was getting at with that question, but Mum just went ahead and answered. 'Yes, there is. Several dozen, in fact, all around the world. Three in Britain, but Hogwarts is easily the largest, and universally considered the best of them.'

For a moment, Richard just nodded to himself. 'And if there are these schools, I'm assuming there is some form of social infrastructure to support them.'

And then there was a long conversation — mostly between Mum, Dad, and Richard — that Charissa didn't pay a whole lot of attention to, since she knew it all already. Talking about, it seemed, magical society, government, culture, just a quick overview of pretty much everything. Charissa instantly had the thought that, if Richard had been a wizard, he would have been in Ravenclaw. It looked like Jasmine was eating it up, too. Violet was still distracted by the lights, which Mum still hadn't dispelled, fruitlessly trying to grab them out of the air.

Before long, that conversation was wrapped up, Richard's curiosity temporarily satisfied. Dad's promise to bring over a few books in the near future — along with a more tentative invite for a tour of the Ministry offices and Wizengamot hall, which would require some magical trickery from Mum to get Richard through the wards — probably had something to do with it finishing so quickly. By then, Petunia seemed to have accepted that this was happening, there was nothing she could do about it. Not that she looked exactly pleased. But it did really feel like knowing _both_ Jasmine and Violet were magic made her a bit more amenable to the idea. Now that she'd had a moment to think about it, with what little Charissa knew about the history between her mum and her aunt, she guessed that wasn't so surprising.

At some point, while the adults kept talking, Charissa noticed Violet and her brothers were all slipping away. No one seemed to care, so she decided to leave herself. She noticed, even as she picked herself up out of her chair, Jasmine was shuffling her papers, folding them into a little bundle to take with her. Charissa half-expected Jasmine to be all over her with questions in a couple seconds.

And she was right. She'd hardly even settled into the couch in the Palmers' living room before Jasmine was there, sitting right next to her. She didn't waste time, either. 'Exactly what classes do they teach at Hogwarts, anyway? I somehow doubt it's all the same as it is here.'

Charissa shrugged. 'I guess not. You'll probably take Charms, Transfiguration, Defence, and Potions every year.' For a few minutes, Charissa had to explain what all of those were. Jasmine didn't ask nearly as many clarifications as she would have thought — she seemed to realise that if she got distracted for too long Charissa would never get through the whole list. 'Alright. And through fifth year there's Herbology and History and Astronomy.'

Unsurprisingly, more questions. With a confused look on her face, Jasmine said, 'Herbology? You mean, like botany?'

'Sort of?' Charissa muttered, frowning to herself. 'I mean, it's with magical plants. A lot of it is stuff you need to know for Potions. And, well, it's _required_ through fifth year, but you _can_ take it past that if you want. Most people just don't.'

'Okay, I guess that kind of makes sense. But what could you ever need Astronomy for?'

Charissa shrugged again. 'I'm told it's sometimes important for certain kinds of ritual magic. Mostly I think it's just tradition. Same reason why for the first two years, at least, you have to take Brīþwn.' Jasmine asked what that was, so Charissa gave the whole explanation, including a few simple sentences in the language. 'There's a more advanced elective for it starting third year, Brīþwn literature. Actually, a lot of electives starting in third year. There's Divination and Care of Magical Creatures — both of those are useless, don't take them. Then Arithmancy, which is basically a continuation of the Magic Theory you take the first two years. Then there's Ancient Runes, Muggle Studies — which you definitely don't need — and Ðīɬ Anðwnn Studies.'

After a couple questions about some of those — after which Jasmine agreed that, yes, Divination and Care sounded useless — she followed with, 'What was that last one?'

'It's just a class about the Ðīɬ Anðwnn.'

'And what's that?'

Charissa thought for a second. 'Ah, we usually say Fae in English, I guess.'

At that, Jasmine gave her a disbelieving frown. 'What, you mean, like, fairies and stuff? Those exist?'

'Sure,' she said with another shrug. 'There's a lot of different races, and I don't know a lot about them. They mostly stay in Anðwnn. Except the goblins and carīdwð, anyway — I'm pretty sure they're technically Fae.'

And then Jasmine had her questions about goblins and carīdwð, which Charissa just sat and answered. As well as she could, anyway. She wasn't exactly an expert on goblins, and she'd never even seen a caryd before, but Jasmine didn't seem bothered when Charissa didn't know something. But then suddenly Jasmine winced, said in a lower voice, 'I'm sorry I'm bothering you with all this. It's just...' She tried to think of what she meant for a couple seconds, then shrugged. 'I just don't know anything about all this.'

Charissa did her best to give Jasmine a smile. She'd always found it difficult to smile when she didn't _feel_ like smiling, which she'd noticed usually made people think she was annoyed with them or didn't like them or something. It had taken a while for extended family and friends and such to convince themselves she didn't mean anything by it — though, far as she could tell, Hermione had figured her out before the end of September — and she knew it was a little off-putting to people who didn't know her well. She couldn't help it. It just felt awkward. It didn't help that she was a bit bored at the moment, but that wasn't really Jasmine's fault. 'It's fine, Jasmine. If you're ever confused about something, or need help or whatever, just find me. When you get to Hogwarts, I mean — I'm going back in a couple days, so you can't exactly bombard me with questions anymore.'

And there was Jasmine's skeptical look again, her slightly narrowed gaze taking in her own expression, which Charissa was sure was slightly pained. 'You sure?'

'Yeah. Family, right?'

All it took was a look at the wide grin now splitting Jasmine's face, and Charissa was pretty sure she was smiling proper now.

* * *

 _Ðīɬ Anðwnn (IPA: [ðyɬ.ɑ̃.ðʉn], roughly "theesh ahn-thun") — As Charissa says, this would be the Brīþwn proper term for the Fae. The term literally means "people of the underworld" (ðīɬ from the same root as Irish duine; Anðwnn from Brittonic *ande-dubnos, cognate to modern Welsh Annwn). I would say more about the Fae — besides saying that, yes, Charissa is correct about goblins and carīdwð technically being Fae — but it will most definitely come up later._

 _carīdwð (IPA: [ca ry dʉð], roughly "cah-ree-duth") — Veela. Rowling took the name for the veela, as well as much of their traits, from the Slavic vila. After a little thinking, I decided to equate the concept with the leannán sí of Goidelic folklore. Irish leannán was translated to Welsh cariad, which I then put through my usual sound changes to get the Brīþwn caryd (IPA: [cɑ.ɾɨd], roughly "cah-rid"), which was then pluralized to get the word above. This would be the proper Brīþwn term, which not all people will use, but it is, in a sense, the most polite. There is a similar term for goblins as well, but the English term is used more often in regular speech. (In case you're wondering, from association with veela, Brīþwn-speakers don't use caryd for its original meaning anymore.)_


	8. July 11th, 1992

_Miss Charissa Potter  
_ _It is my pleasure to inform you þat you have met all academic requirements for first year students, and are free to continue with þe second year þis coming term.  
_ _I wish you good fortune in your continuing education.  
_ _Deputy Headmistress, Minerva McGonagall_

 _Notice of Academic Achievement, 1991-1992  
_ _Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry  
_ _{_ _Subject_ _(year): letter — rank}_

 _Astronomy_ _(1): E — 16  
_ _Modern Brīþwn_ _(1): O — 5  
_ _Charms_ _(1): O — 6  
Þeory: O — 10  
_ _Applied: O — 4  
_ _Defence Against the Dark Arts_ _(1): O — 1  
_ _Þ_ _eory: O — 3  
_ _Applied: O — 1  
_ _Herbology_ _(1): E — 27  
_ _History_ _(1): E — 9  
_ _Magical_ _Þ_ _eory_ _(1): O — 7  
_ _Potions_ _(1): O — 3  
_ _Þ_ _eory: O — 4  
_ _Applied: O — 2  
_ _Transfiguration_ _(1): O — 8  
_ _Þ_ _eory: E — 12  
_ _Applied: O — 5_

 ** _O — 6/56_**

* * *

 _Miss Hermione Granger  
_ _It is my pleasure to inform you þat you have met all academic requirements for first year students, and are free to continue with þe second year þis coming term.  
_ _I wish you good fortune in your continuing education.  
_ _Deputy Headmistress, Minerva McGonagall_

 _Notice of Academic Achievement, 1991-1992  
_ _Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry  
_ _{_ _Subject_ _(year): letter — rank}_

 _Astronomy_ _(1): O — 1  
_ _Modern Brīþwn_ _(1): O — 2  
_ _Charms_ _(1): O — 1  
_ _Þ_ _eory: O — 1  
_ _Applied: O — 2  
_ _Defence Against the Dark Arts_ _(1): O — 4  
_ _Þ_ _eory: O — 1  
_ _Applied: O — 9  
_ _Herbology_ _(1): O — 2  
_ _History_ _(1): O — 1  
_ _Magical_ _Þ_ _eory_ _(1): O — 1  
_ _Potions_ _(1): O — 1  
_ _Þ_ _eory: O — 1  
_ _Applied: O — 1  
_ _Transfiguration_ _(1): O — 1  
_ _Þ_ _eory: E — 1  
_ _Applied: O — 2_

 ** _O — 1/56_**

* * *

 _Miss Granger—_

 _I was very impressed to see your end of term scores þis year. Very rarely does anyone do so well in so many different subjects at þe same time. I hope it isn't too much of a burden to you for me to say I eagerly look forward to your future endeavors. Please feel free to come see me at any time for any þing, even if it may seem inconsequential._

— _Filius Flitwick_

* * *

 _Hermione—_

 _I really wish you would stop obsessing over your DADA grade so much. You did perfectly fine. More ðan fine. Really, I'm not sure why you would find being fourþ in our year a disappointment. And before you even þink for a second I'm only saying ðat because I topped ðat class, remember you beat me in quite literally every oðer class we took. Please calm down. I can't force you to sleep from over here._

 _But I þink I actually have a fix for a couple of your problems. I'm pretty sure I told you about Jasmine, who'll be coming to Hogwarts next year. She's muggleborn like you, so a few weeks ago Mum popped over to ðeir house to put a private Floo link between ðeir house and ours. Before you ask, yes, it is illegal to connect a muggle home to ðe Network — it's a private connection to our house only, which I guess is some sort of loophole. Ðat and Mum and Dad between ðem probably know ðe right people to get away wiþ it anyway._

 _Speaking of getting away wiþ it, ðere's kind of a loophole in ðe underage magic law. I won't get into ðe details, but in practice we can do as much magic as we like, as long as ðe property we're on is private and owned by a mage. Before you ask, yes, I'm pretty sure ðe enforcement of ðat law is targeted against muggleborns. And, yes, it's stupid. But it's why I was ahead of you in practical classes at ðe start of ðe year — I had a monþ of private lessons from Remus before ever getting to Hogwarts._

 _I'm telling you ðis because I had an idea. Why don't I ask Mum to make anoðer of ðose private Floo links, to your house? Ðen you can come over to practice magic whenever you want, bombard me wiþ all ðose questions you always seem to have in person. Much quicker response ðat way, maybe you'll actually run out eventually. We also have a raðer nice library you can camp in. It's smaller ðan ðe one at Hogwarts, of course, but we have some books Hogwarts doesn't. Dad will hide some of ðe ones less suitable for good little girls before you show up, but I know where he puts ðem when he does ðat, if you're curious. And Remus and my Uncle Sirius are here pretty often if you want tips for DADA. Oh, Sirius is a Hit Wizard, by ðe way, he doesn't know as much as Remus, but he's a pretty good duellist too, I hear. Noþing like Mum, of course, but she'll probably be too busy all summer. And we don't really know enough magic for her stuff to be much help yet anyway._

 _Wouldn't even have to stay at my house, even. Can go pretty much anywhere þrough ðe Floo here. Ðere's some people I can introduce you to, if you're curious. O_ _ð_ _er kids from Noble Houses, mostly — yes, yes, I know. And your parents can come whenever ðey want, too, if you wanted to get ðem introduced to magical stuff. I suspect ðe orientation summer last year wasn't very þorough._

 _Anyway. Mum is gonna put a Protean charm on ðis letter when I'm done. If you'd like her to put ðe Floo link in, write down your address and a good time to drop by on ðe back, and we'll be ðere._

— _Charissa_

* * *

Hermione was decidedly anxious.

Charissa and Lady Potter would be here, in her very much non-magical home, literally any minute now. Part of that was just uncomfortable. The _only_ magical person that had been in her house so far was, well, herself. When Professor McGonagall had tracked them down to tell them about magic in the first place they hadn't been at home. The idea of magic intruding on the centre of her old, normal life was just...odd. Sure, she had books on all sorts of things better suited to fantasy novels than reality strewn all over the place, but books were something entirely apart from living, breathing witches. It was just _peculiar_. Magic and Hogwarts sometimes felt like a world separate from this one, two entirely different realms, like _she_ was a different person in one place compared with the other. She couldn't count how many times she'd had to nigh physically restrain herself from picking up her wand and doing some little spell for one reason or another. Well, she could actually — it was thirty-seven — but that was just a thing people said. She'd _just_ gotten used to _not_ being magic again, and now magic was coming home, and it was confusing.

Another reason for the anxiety involved her parents. Even after a couple trips into the magical district of London, Hermione could still count the number of magical people her parents had had a legitimate conversation with on the fingers of one hand — Professor McGonagall, Master Ollivander, and herself. And she really thought including herself was cheating. Unfortunately, before she could carefully select the available material ahead of time, her parents had gotten a hold of a couple history texts. So they knew just how awful the magical world could be sometimes. Proportionately, she didn't think it was actually that bad — humanity in general weren't exactly known for their universal sainthood — but the added factor of magic, something new and incomprehensible to them, was making her worry a bit. What if they got scared, and decided to pull her from Hogwarts? take magic away? They couldn't understand it like she did, they couldn't _feel_ it, and they didn't really talk about it all that much either, so she was worried. And she couldn't _stop_ , even though she knew she should, and it was annoying.

Exactly _who_ their company was didn't exactly make things any easier. She'd met Lady Potter a grand total of twice — once in November when she'd picked Charissa up for lunch somewhere (unfair that magical families got to do that), once a couple weeks ago at King's Cross — and Hermione couldn't help feeling she was...intimidating. For one thing, there was the intensity that seemed to be, at some level, a family trait. She'd noticed almost right away, that Charissa had a habit of sitting still and quiet and just _watching_ , and when she actually concentrated on something the intensity of her focus was almost unbelievably intense. Especially for an eleven-year-old — at least Hermione _thought_ she was still eleven, never actually asked when her birthday was. When Charissa turned one of those steady, level, dissecting looks on her it came almost as a physical blow. If she had to rate Charissa's quiet intensity, between zero and ten, she'd be a nine.

And Lady Potter was a _thousand_. It had happened only once, the first time they'd met. Before speaking, Lady Potter had paused, hardly for a second, just to look at her. It had reminded her of one of her flying lessons — she really did not like those — when she'd first lowered her elevation a bit at speed. It had felt like falling, all support vanished from beneath her leaving her to drift, tingling magical fingers racing across her skin, through her _brain_ , leaving absolutely nothing unexamined. Then she had been back on solid ground, and Lady Potter had been opening her mouth to continue the conversation, like nothing had happened. And, well, this was someone who, when she'd been a student at the school Hermione even now attended, had been solidly at the top of her class her entire tenure — even, she'd found with a little research, published original accomplishments in _multiple_ scholarly journals in her last couple years. She was in _books_ , she'd been in the newspapers _several times_ , just in the last year she _single-handedly defeated an infamous dark lord_. With the lone exception of the Headmaster — and _possibly_ Professor Flitwick, but she didn't think so — Hermione was decently sure Lady Potter was the single most capable magic person she'd seen with her own two eyes.

She was of two minds about that. On the one hand, if Lady Potter decided she wanted to hurt Hermione, she would _never see it coming_. She was pretty sure she'd be out before she even noticed a twitch. She knew that _wouldn't_ happen, but the fact that it _could_ made her uncomfortable, to say the least. But on the other, she wanted to ask _so many questions_. As Charissa liked to tease her about, she never ran out of questions.

She hadn't explained all that to her parents, though. A little bit about her being nobility by marriage — the idea of an aristocracy that actually _mattered_ still struck Hermione as peculiar and anachronistic — that sort of thing, but not those scary details. There really wasn't any reason to scare them.

And, well, the idea of Charissa coming over was enough to make her nervous all on its own. After all, had she _ever_ had a friend over?

That, too, was just a thing people said. She knew full well she hadn't.

She was fully aware she was doing a very, very bad job of hiding her anxiety. She and her parents were waiting in the sitting room, her parents dissecting a newspaper, Hermione sitting with one of next year's textbooks spread over her lap. Not that she could actually concentrate on reading. She hadn't even turned a page in a while now. She just couldn't focus on the words at all, they didn't make any sense. Not to mention that, with the peculiar way her memory worked, she always read in the same chair if she could help it, so it'd be easier to recall later. That chair was in their little library, so the fact that she was sitting here instead was itself out of the ordinary. She noticed Mum was shooting her the occasional look, though she wasn't entirely sure what kind. Partially because she wasn't really looking, partially because Mum was likely trying to hide what kind.

Not that she was sure why Mum would do that. People were confusing sometimes.

Hermione practically jumped when there was a knock on the door. Her heart suddenly pounding in her throat, she folded her book closed, set it down next to the nearby lamp, and immediately headed for the door, hardly aware of her parents drifting along behind her. After a last calming breath, she pulled the door open. 'Good morning, Lady Potter.' Wait, it was still morning right? She was pretty sure.

One thing Hermione had noticed about Lady Potter before was that she was _unfairly_ pretty. That she was wearing muggle-style blouse and skirt at the moment just made it more obvious — native magical clothing styles tended to be more concealing. And that just made her uncomfortable, though probably not for the reason most people would think. Or, at least, the reason she assumed most people would think. See, she'd _also_ seen a picture of Lord Potter at some point, so knew he was rather handsome himself. So, both of Charissa's parents were pretty. Which meant it was quite likely _Charissa_ would be pretty when they were older. The thought made her vaguely uncomfortable — pretty people didn't tend to be very nice to her.

Lady Potter grimaced a little, looking surprisingly awkward. 'Ah, you _really_ don't have to call me that. _Lily_ is fine.'

The idea of calling Charissa's powerful and famous mother, of all people, by her first name was exceptionally peculiar. But she just shrugged and went along with it.

And then Lily was stepping past her, introducing herself to Hermione's parents, leaving Hermione at the door with Charissa. She wasn't entirely sure how exactly she got the impression, but she always felt like Charissa looked vaguely _uncomfortable_ when wearing muggle clothing. Probably just didn't do it often enough so she wasn't used to it, Hermione thought. 'Hi, Hermione,' the other girl said with her usual sort of smile — by which Hermione meant so small as to be almost undetectable. She'd noticed almost immediately that Charissa was really inexpressive compared to other kids. But then, that also seemed to be true of most of the kids in their year from Noble Houses, so what did she know.

She grinned back, trying to make it as not-nervous-looking as she could.

Hardly thirty seconds later, they were in the sitting room again, Lily standing before the hearth. 'Now,' Lily said, her voice light and easy, 'I have an Unspeakable friend who gave us a short window in the detection wards to set this up, so I'll have to get right down to it. The enchantment itself will only take a couple minutes, then I'll have to test it back and forth quick, and I'll explain how everything works when I'm done. This one?' she asked with a gesture at the fireplace over her shoulder. After a couple assents from Mum and Dad, Lily turned around, pulling a wand seemingly from nowhere — the motion looked like drawing it from a sleeve holster, but Lily's arms were bare, and there was nothing there. Must be charmed invisible.

Unable to suppress her curiosity, Hermione stood and watched. For a moment, nothing at all happened, Lily just breathing, staring at the stone hearth in silence. Then she jabbed with her wand a few times — not _at_ the fireplace, but around it — each jab silently casting a charm so powerful Hermione could feel them tingling on the air. Her senses weren't discerning or sensitive enough yet to determine what kind of charm those were, but she knew from her reading they were probably some form of stasis charm, freezing the ambient magic immediately around the fireplace so natural flux in the environment wouldn't interfere with the enchantment.

But then Lily started doing something that left Hermione completely clueless — and that wasn't something she experienced very often. Holding her wand in a delicate grip between splayed fingers, Lily made a series of tight, curving flicks through the air. With each movement, a thin trail of fiery orange _something_ was left behind, tracing the path of the tip. Hermione had absolutely no idea what that was. After a little while, Hermione suddenly recognised the shapes Lily was drawing in the air — the slightly modified Egyptian hieroglyphs used in enchanting. But this wasn't how people _did_ enchanting. The vast majority of the time, an enchantment was created by carving the appropriate characters in the appropriate script into the object to be enchanted, then imbuing the object with undifferentiated magical energy, or allowing it to absorb ambient energy, depending on the qualities of the particular enchantment. That process she understood perfectly fine, even if she couldn't do it herself. She had no idea what _this_ was.

So she asked. 'Excuse me, but I don't—' She was cut off, rather roughly and suddenly, by a hand clapping over her mouth.

She followed the arm the hand was attached to over to Charissa at her side. Part of Hermione wanted to be annoyed with being manhandled like this, but she was just too confused to really summon the proper emotion. Charissa raised a single finger to her lips. Removing her hand, she then went to Mum and Dad, indicating silently they should both leave the room. A few seconds later, Charissa had led the three confused Grangers into the kitchen. She stopped, drawing a familiar wand — which seemed to come out of nowhere much as Lily's — then paused for a second before casting a silencing barrier between where they stood and where her mother was still working. Hermione was _just about_ to protest Charissa using magic outside of school, but then she remembered Lily had apparently gotten an Unspeakable (whatever that was) to temporarily lower the detection wards in the area specifically so she could illegally add an illegal Floo link to the Granger house, so making a big deal about Charissa illegally doing a little bit of magic would really be quite silly.

'Sorry about that,' Charissa said, lowering her wand, 'I forgot you wouldn't know.' She turned back to the three of them, an intensely serious look on her face. 'Never, _ever_ interrupt someone in the middle of runic casting. Especially something long and complicated like this enchantment.'

'Runic casting?' Hermione couldn't ever remember reading that term anywhere. Which was something of an unusual experience.

'Yeah. Drawing runes in the air like that. Don't interrupt. If they lose focus, something bad might happen.'

'Bad like what?'

'Like blow up this whole house.'

Oh.

Well.

While Hermione was taking a moment to commit that little bit of information to memory somewhere she'd never have to actually search for it, just in case, she noticed her parents give each other an uncomfortable look. Eventually, Dad said, 'Erm, maybe we shouldn't...'

'It'll be fine, Mister Granger,' Charissa said with her usual smooth confidence, which had always seemed out of place on an eleven-year-old to Hermione. Well, an eleven-year-old who wasn't herself last year, anyway. 'There are very few witches around her age on the entire planet who could do better than my mother. If we don't interrupt her, nothing will go wrong.'

Hermione's instinctual reaction to such a superlative boast was to doubt it, but she considered it a moment before the thought could settle. From a little research, she knew it was not _at all_ easy to become an Auror. It wasn't all about knowing the law and proper investigative procedure, or being good in a fight — that was much of it. The raw magical power candidates were required to demonstrate, the intricate knowledge of magical theory and practice in a broad range of fields they needed to know, even a small list of _wandless_ spells they needed to master before being accepted... Yes, it was certainly something only the most skilled were capable of doing. There was a reason there were only a couple dozen Aurors in Britain at any one time.

And right there was a reason Hermione found Charissa's cousin Dora so confusing. Such a silly, crude, airheaded girl going straight into an apprenticeship with the Aurors immediately after graduating? She certainly wouldn't have expected that.

But that seemed to be at least enough reassurance for her parents to drop the subject. They started up a conversation, the casual sort of small talk people who don't know each other at all seem to drop into — which she knew Charissa hated, but she went along with it politely enough. She'd noticed before that Charissa didn't like talking about nothing, preferred to only talk if she had something specific to talk about, which Hermione had to admit was actually something of a relief. She'd never been great with small talk either.

They'd maybe only been going a couple minutes when Mum suddenly said, 'What is that?'

It took only a second of looking around for Hermione to spot what Mum was talking about. Over there, on the counter, spread over the top of the microwave in a bright patch of sunlight from a nearby window was— 'Charissa, is that your cat?'

Charissa glanced over her shoulder — Hermione could see half of the sudden frown that appeared when she saw him. 'Augí? What are you doing here?'

The mostly white kitten — which was a bit larger than he'd been when Hermione had first seen him, but hadn't grown quite as much as she would have expected, presumably due to his magical heritage — just lay still on the microwave, eyes contentedly closed. A slight twitch from his tail was the only response.

With a hint of exasperation on her voice, Charissa said, 'I was only going to be gone for a couple minutes.' After another moment, the cat sitting perfectly still and silent, Charissa turned back to them with a sigh, shaking her head to herself a little.

'Charissa, were you just...' She glanced back and forth between Charissa and Augí, sending the occasional glance at her parents, feeling extremely silly. '...talking to your cat?'

'Well, yeah,' Charissa said with a shrug. 'That started happening recently. I told you a couple months ago I started noticing the familiar bond?'

Hermione nodded. They'd had a long conversation about that, how Charissa suddenly could figure out exactly where Augí was if she took a second to concentrate on him, how, when practising certain spells, she could sort of feel him there. It had inspired another research binge from Hermione which had only been cut off by her preparation for finals two weeks later.

'About a week ago, I found out I can sort of tell what he's thinking. It's not, you know, _words_ , or anything, just a vague impression, but it's enough to communicate with.'

That was...interesting. If she understood correctly, that meant Charissa and Augí were forming a proper familiar bond a bit ahead of schedule. Usually, without any sort of ritual to accelerate the process, it took a few years for that to start happening. But then, there was a bit of natural variation in how quickly it happened, and even instantaneous bondings were not entirely unheard of, so that didn't necessarily mean anything. But then they had something more interesting to talk about, Hermione and Charissa answering Mum and Dad's questions about this sort of thing. They seemed to be especially interested about the ability of true familiars to perform minor magics independently, which was actually how Augí had gotten here in the first place — by displacing through shadow, apparently, though Hermione didn't know what that meant, and Charissa wasn't entirely sure either, just repeating what her mother had said.

Before too long, Charissa's mother was back, dispelling Charissa's silencing barrier with a flick of wandless fingers. 'That's it,' she said, a slightly tired-looking smile on her face. 'Tested it both ways. It's working fine. Come on, I'll show you how it works.'

The explanation was very short, just the process they had to follow, none of the theory behind it. She specifically said to be careful to duck down a bit both ways so they don't hit their head going in or out — magical homes usually had larger fireplaces than theirs, specifically so people could do this comfortably, so using theirs would be slightly awkward. And that the experience itself was a bit unpleasant, but Hermione guessed instant transportation like this was convenient enough to put up with some degree of discomfort. Charissa went first, demonstrating for the Grangers, disappearing in a flash of green flame.

Just as Hermione was about to follow, doing her best to swallow back the tide of anxiety once again rising, Lily stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. 'Wait. Do you have your wand with you?'

'Oh,' she said, blinking. 'No, it's upstairs.'

'Go ahead and grab it. You can show off for your parents a little bit when you're there.'

That was really all the convincing Hermione needed.

A minute later, she was stepping through the Floo, a flurry of flickering green and indistinguishable snatches of other colours swirling about her in a nauseating dance. For some reason, closing her eyes didn't seem to help. And then the spinning was suddenly gone, and she was stumbling over a wood floor, hands at her shoulders steadying her before she could fall. 'Yeah, that takes some getting used to.'

'I'll say.' Hermione took a moment to recover, drawing deep breaths in and out, leaning on Charissa a little for balance. Then she stood properly, opened her eyes and looked around.

She was in a sort of sitting room, she guessed. The floor immediately in front of the hearth was made of interlocking wooden tiles a deep rosy wood, the rest a thick carpet in similar red. In fact, almost everything was black or some shade of red. The fuzzy couple loveseats a short distance over there a deep reddish colour, an intricate if slightly faded patchwork quilt of mostly reds and blacks draped over a nearby rocking chair. A few paintings on the walls — a couple of the animated portraits magical people had, but she also spotted a landscape of trees fiery with autumn, fluttering as though in a slight breeze — were also dominated with darks and crimsons, the walls themselves painted a red a few shades lighter than the carpet. Even the curtains were red, tinting the sunlight streaming through decidedly pinkish, setting the whole room ablaze with a soft, warm glow. She thought it was actually rather nice, if a bit monochromatic.

Even while she still looked around, Hermione reached into the pocket of her skirt to retrieve her wand — she'd had to change quick into one of the few skirts she had that had a pocket long enough. A quick wave and a muttering of ' _Tergeātur_ ,' and the thin coating of ash she'd acquired from the journey was lifted off her and dropped to the floor, a second spell forcing the little pile back into the fireplace. There was a slight variation on the spell that would have vanished the ash instead of just removing it, but she couldn't do that consistently yet. 'I think I spot a theme in here.'

Charissa shrugged a little at that. 'Yeah. My parents happen to share a favorite colour. Care to guess which one?'

'I really don't see how I'd have to guess.'

Charissa just smirked.

A moment later, Mum and Dad were stumbling out of the fireplace, one right after the other. Lily didn't bother, appearing out of nowhere right next to them with an almost unnoticeably soft pop of apparation even as Hermione repeated her simple cleaning charm on her parents. For a second Hermione was confused — she'd learnt from more than one source magical homes were nigh-universally warded against most forms of independent transportation magic — but decided as she swept the ash away there must be an exception in the wards for people who actually lived here. She was pretty sure that was possible, though she was admittedly not an expert on the topic. Yet.

After a quick tour around the house — a place filled with a variety of peculiar magical artifacts, only half of which she could reliably identify, keeping mostly to the same overwhelmingly red colour scheme, with the exception of the kitchen, which was almost blindingly brilliant with whites and yellows — they were all outside. The little house, which Hermione had an odd suspicion was both larger and differently shaped on the inside than the outside, was set in a clearing of grasses and bushes in the middle of a forest. A short distance away was a pentagonal span of flat granite covering roughly as many square metres as the house, runes visibly inscribed along the border — she recognised it immediately from a diagram in _A History of Modern Competitive Duelling_ (which she'd only read because Charissa had mentioned multiple times an interest in joining the duelling club next year) as a warded circle used in certain variations of the sport. Further, she saw a few indistinct shapes drifting over the trees she thought might be a few people flying around on brooms, but they were too far away to be sure.

Just because she could, she started going through her mental library of spells, showing her parents charm after charm and transfiguration after transfiguration. After a little bit, Lily and Charissa started playing around firing minor jinxes at each other. Hermione couldn't help but watch. It was obvious Lily was going _extremely_ easy on Charissa — her wand moved for every charm in a smooth, exaggerated sort of way, and Hermione was sure Lily didn't actually _need_ to say any of those incantations aloud. She got the impression she was sort of teaching Charissa both how to recognise the jinxes she was casting just by the motion of her wand, and time her blocking of them more accurately. Because Charissa actually _was_ blocking the jinxes she wasn't just stepping out of the way of, somewhat to Hermione's surprise. She could tell it wasn't a full _prōtege_ , a much simpler, smaller barrier instead, but it was actually _working_.

She decided she just had to learn it. Lily gave her a quick, impromptu lesson in the charm, explaining not only how to _cast_ it, but also how to _use_ it. Unlike a proper _prōtege_ , this charm raised a much narrower barrier, and only for a second or two. It required both proper timing and proper aim to successfully block an incoming spell. The barrier was also rather weak — only good enough for most jinxes and the lighter hexes — but the charm could be intentionally overpowered to handle more with a moment's warning. Not that Hermione actually knew how to consciously moderate the power of a charm like that very well yet, but it was still nice to know.

After she got the basics of the charm itself down, she quickly learned she wasn't nearly as good at aiming or timing it as Charissa was. She missed almost every one of the simple stinging jinxes Lily tested her with, only catching three of them, and those only because Lily sent them directly for her wand hand. But she guessed that would come with practice.

And then there were suddenly more than just the four of them. The dots in the distance rapidly approached, resolving into five figures on brooms. Two were adult men — Charissa's father, who insisted everyone use his first name much like Lily had, and a cousin of his named Sirius — another two Charissa's little brothers, Linden and Perry. The last Hermione hadn't expected at all: Jasmine, Charissa's muggleborn cousin. Apparently, when she'd first tried flying during a visit a few weeks ago, she'd instantly taken a liking to it — which Hermione personally couldn't fathom — and had come over to play around with it as often as she could talk her mother into letting her. While the group babbled away about their flying today, Sirius said at one point Jasmine would probably make a pretty decent chaser at this rate, which put such a wide grin on her face Hermione was surprised she didn't pull something.

A few minutes later, while the five took turns in the shower and the adults all got to know each other, Charissa led Hermione up to the library. Hermione immediately noticed it was one of the larger rooms in the house, filled with dozens of shelves of deep red wood, interspersed with comfortable-looking padded chairs at tables an identical colour, all set to glowing by sunlight streaming in through the occasional tall window. She paced along the shelves, finger trailing along the spines, eyes flicking over volume after volume after incomprehensible volume — many weren't even in English, and even some of the ones that were referenced subjects she'd never heard of. One of the tables she passed was covered in a layer of parchment, thick with what she recognised as arithmantic functions strewn with runic shorthand. She assumed it was some project Lily was working on, though she didn't know nearly enough arithmancy or runes to even come close to guessing what it was. Not surprising, since she hadn't actually taken a class in either yet — with the exception of Theory, which she understood was sort of introductory arithmancy.

Sitting in one of the armchairs behind where Hermione was pacing around, Charissa said, 'I'm guessing that means you like it.'

'I could _live_ here.'

Charissa let out an almost inaudible choking sound, one Hermione knew as a mostly-successful attempt to keep herself from laughing.

Keeping her frown turned to the books in front of her, Hermione said, 'I know I'm weird, I can't help it.'

'I wasn't making fun of you, Hermione. Just thought it was an adorable thing to say. Very _Hermione-ish_ , if you know what I mean.'

Hermione rolled her eyes at that, but didn't say anything.

But apparently she didn't have to say anything, because Charissa somehow knew roughly what she was thinking, even though Hermione had her back to her. 'No cause not to believe me when I go saying things like that, Hermione. I am friends with you for a reason, you know.'

She wasn't really sure what to think about that. Because, well, Charissa _was_ willing to be her friend which was...not something she was exactly used to. Before Hogwarts, the sum total of her experience with kids her own age was schoolwork-related — either volunteering her assistance herself or being volunteered by a teacher — or being bullied by them. It sounded depressing even thinking it to herself, but there it was. She'd actually been pulled out of school about a year and a half before she'd learned of magic, switched to being home schooled instead, it had gotten so bad. Which didn't mean she had never _tried_ , of course. Other kids just didn't... They didn't _think_ the same way she did, they didn't care about the same things. It was just impossible to relate to them most of the time. Like they were a different species.

There had been people in the past who had cosied up to her because they knew she'd help with schoolwork, yes, but Charissa didn't fit in even that category. She really didn't need Hermione's help. She wasn't quite as good as Hermione, but she _was_ ahead of most of the rest of their classmates — she suspected Charissa might actually be cleverer than she was, but her honestly freakish memory gave her enough of an edge she had the advantage in academics. So that couldn't be what was going on at all.

She was perfectly aware even in the privacy of her own head that it was a depressing thing to think, but she wasn't really sure why someone would _want_ to be her friend. She knew she was a pain, she had no illusions about that. Others had complained about them enough she was now well-informed of her own more obsessive habits, and she suspect she might have something of a temper problem. That time she'd hit Charissa with so many stinging jinxes she'd almost entirely changed colours came to mind. She really had no idea why someone would put up with her, but she knew she shouldn't just _ask_. That would be weird.

Well, but...

But this was _Charissa_. Charissa _was_ weird. Maybe not as weird as Hermione herself, but definitely not a normal girl either. Hermione couldn't say exactly what it was that made her think that. Little things, she guessed. How little patience Charissa had for pointless talking. How most of the time, around their other classmates, she just sat there and watched. Now that she thought about it, if she excluded a few people — the seemingly numerous people Charissa was related to, the other kids from Noble Houses who she couldn't politely ignore, and Hermione herself — did Charissa really ever talk to anyone? Outside of what was required for classes, and a polite response to a direct question here or there, Hermione really couldn't think of anyone. That was...interesting. She wasn't sure what to think about that. How had she never noticed?

Maybe she should just ask then. Might be awkward, but she thought she was getting better at dealing with awkward. 'Why are you friends with me, then?'

For a few seconds, there was no response. And then a few more seconds. Eventually, when Charissa still hadn't said anything, Hermione turned to look at her, finding her staring over at her with a weird, confused-looking expression on her face. Finally, 'Ah, I'm not really sure how to answer that. Not a question I expected to get.'

'Sorry, you don't have to answer if you don't want to.'

'No, it's fine, I—' She frowned to herself for a moment, then shook her head. 'I dunno. You make sense, I guess.'

Hermione felt her eyebrows track up her forehead as she tried to process that. She _made sense?_ What did that even mean? She couldn't think of what to say to that, so after a moment she decided just to repeat that thought out loud.

Charissa shrugged. 'I dunno, it's weird.' She was silent for a while, but Hermione just stood waiting — that empty look on Charissa's face was the one she wore when she was trying to find the words to explain something. Her voice low and hesitant, she said, 'You ever feel like, I dunno. Like everyone else is speaking a different language?'

And her eyebrows came straight back down in a sudden frown. 'How do you mean?'

'Like...' Charissa thought for another moment, then shrugged again. 'I dunno. Like the words make sense, individually. You know what they all mean. But, for some reason, when other people put them together, the sentences mean things to other people that isn't, I dunno, doesn't make any sense. Like there's some extra meaning there that everyone else can pick up, but you never learned. Like that.'

Her own reaction to that rambling explanation was confusing. There was an intense easing somewhere hidden in her chest, as though a great pressure she hadn't even noticed until just now was suddenly released. She couldn't help letting out a short sigh of relief, making it as quiet as she could — if Charissa asked what that sigh was for, she had no idea how she could answer. And though all that was a bit confusing, she didn't have to think for a second about how to respond. 'Yes. All the time.'

Charissa smiled at her then, one of those smaller, thinner smiles. What she looked like when she actually meant it.

* * *

 _tergeātur — Latin third-person passive subjunctive for "to wipe, clean, polish"; equivalent to canon tergeo (first-person active indicative of the same verb)_

 _prōtege — Latin imperative for "to cover protect"; equivalent to canon protego (first-person indicative of the same verb)_


	9. Second Year — August 29th

This time, the pack of people Charissa arrived with to the Platform was even larger.

They blocked off a significant percentage of the edge of the Platform, gathered to say goodbye at the train. There was her immediate family, of course — herself, Linden and Perry, Mum and Dad, along with Sirius and Peter. Like last year, the Longbottoms — Alice and Frank, Neville, and Gwyneira, who was starting this year — had met them at their house before leaving. And then there was the addition of the Palmers — Petunia and Richard, Jasmine and Violet. Hermione and her parents had even joined them. It was an absolutely preposterous number of people for one group, enough all jammed together Charissa was feeling a little claustrophobic. Dora had even come by to see them off, even though she'd graduated last year, and wouldn't be going herself. Charissa suspected she just wanted to tease everyone again.

Eventually, the kids were surrendered to the train, and Charissa led the five of them ducking out of sight from any last-minute tears — honest from Aunt Petunia and Missus Granger, sarcastic from Dora. Then she considered what to do. But it didn't take long. Last year they'd sat with Susan, but she thought it likely she'd be with either Hannah Abbott, who she'd been friends with since before Hogwarts — to be honest, Charissa had been a bit surprised they hadn't been together on the train last year — or maybe a couple people from Gryffindor, none of whom she knew all that well. She could look for Morag, but she was pretty sure she'd likely be with one or two other people, which would make an uncomfortable fit with their group of five. The same problem would come up with anyone Neville knew in Hufflepuff. She considered finding Luna, who'd be starting this year, but decided she'd _probably_ be somewhere with the Weasleys. So instead she and Neville led the way down the hall, ushering everyone into the first empty compartment they found.

The train ride was completely uneventful. Most of the trip, Charissa just sat in a corner, idly stroking Augí in her lap, listening to the conversation around her, meeting Hermione's rambles about second year classes when she noticed no one was taking her up on it. She was more than a little relieved to see Jasmine and Gwyneira were chatting excitedly with each other almost nonstop. She'd known they'd been hanging out a bit over the summer, but since their excursions had mostly revolved around quidditch — in her immediate family, Gwyneira was pretty much the only one who cared one way or the other about the game — while Charissa had spent most of _her_ time with Jasmine in the library or teaching her basic charms, she hadn't been entirely sure how well they actually got along. Mum had told Charissa to keep an eye on Jasmine, after all. A friend in her own year would definitely be helpful. Unfortunately, she didn't think Gwyneira would be in Ravenclaw, where she was pretty sure Jasmine would end up — she suspected the youngest of the Longbottoms was headed for Gryffindor.

Maybe she should introduce Jasmine to Luna tonight. She'd be surprised if Luna was put anywhere but Ravenclaw. That could possibly kill two birds with one stone, so to speak — Luna was perfectly nice, but could be a bit much for most people to take. Associating with Luna could just make Jasmine's social situation, which would already be fragile due to her birth, even worse, but she didn't really expect Jasmine to _care_ so much, as long as she had a few people she could talk to, and it could be perfect for Luna. And Luna would probably bring Ginny into the picture, who Charissa thought Jasmine might take to just as well as Gwyneira. Actually, she thought a Jasmine–Gwyneira–Luna–Ginny friendship could be good for all of them. As long as they could put up with each other, their personalities would mesh rather well. Hmm.

Wait. Were these thoughts she was having, contemplating the arrangement of social connections for people without their knowledge, rather Slytherin-ish? They were, they completely were, and all, if she were to be perfectly honest with herself, to make her life easier, so she didn't have to spend too much time actively looking out for Jasmine. Shite. She'd been trying not to do that.

Whatever. It was still a good idea, and all it would take would be introducing Jasmine and Luna, prod a little from both sides to make sure it stuck. No matter the benefit to herself, she was sure it would still be good for them. They both could use more friends.

So she should just stop feeling weird about it.

* * *

'That is rather peculiar.'

Charissa glanced at Hermione, sitting next to her on the carriage smoothly rolling its way up to the castle. She'd noticed Hermione had closed her eyes shortly after getting on, hand tightly gripping her wand, frowning in concentration. Probably trying to do _something_ , but Charissa hadn't known what, and figured Hermione would mention it if it were important. 'What's peculiar?'

'You know I've been trying to refine my ability to sense magic.' Yes, she had. Uncle Remus was already impressed she was nearly as good at it as she was. Charissa had started to be able to pick up a little bit, which he'd said was somewhat unusual all on its own — though Mum and Aunt Alice had been similarly sensitive at her age — but Hermione could already recognise a couple different enchantments around the house just by the texture of them, which Charissa wasn't yet discerning enough to manage. 'Well, I was trying to see if I could spot the enchantment pulling these carriages. It should be pretty easy to find — the ground we are crossing isn't hardly an even plane, so the active magic should be easily identifiable by its variable output. But I'm not noticing anything at all.'

Neville's voice, coming from the seat across from them, came low, a little more unsteady than usual. 'Thestrals.'

'What?'

'It's not an enchantment pulling the carriages. There are thestrals.'

Poor Neville was then bombarded with an onslaught of questions from Hermione. But she did have the presence of mind to be a bit gentler about it once she figured out why they couldn't see them while Neville could.

On arriving at the castle, exercising a little extra caution to carefully avoid Parkinson, Neville disappearing to sit with Hopkins and Jones, Charissa led Hermione to a spot at the Ravenclaw table right next to the seats at the front end reserved for the incoming first years. Usually, prefects and certain especially friendly upper years took these seats, but Charissa had managed to get here early enough to claim two. She wanted to get started early on Jasmine and Luna.

The Sorting itself held very few surprises. There were a few kids whose names she recognised from Noble Houses. She made careful note of new Slytherins Hesper and Alexis, who she knew to be the grandchildren of Lord Gaunt — she mostly knew of Gaunt from Dad complaining about him, and from her impression of him she didn't much expect the Gaunt twins to be very nice to Jasmine. Gwyneira was called up before too long, and she actually spent a surprisingly long span of time, nearly three minutes, before being sent to Gryffindor. Charissa hadn't thought it would take that long. Shortly afterward, Luna was sent to Ravenclaw after hardly a couple seconds under the Hat — not at all a surprise. Charissa waved her over, the dreamy-eyed waif of a girl giving her an oddly calm look, as though nothing out of the ordinary were happening today whatsoever, before drifting over to sit next to her. While the next person was being Sorted, Charissa whispered to Luna to keep the seat next to her open, explaining she had a cousin she was pretty sure was about to join them in a couple minutes. Charissa thought Luna actually smiled at her for a second, but then she had returned to her normal indecipherable self, nodding back.

Some minutes later, Jasmine was called up, then spent maybe twenty seconds under the Hat before being sent straight to the Ravenclaw table. The same eager, excited grin on her face she'd been wearing the whole train ride, Jasmine rushed over at Charissa's wave, plopping down at the table right at Luna's other side. Charissa introduced the two of them, mentioning to Jasmine that Luna's father was _sort of_ a friend of her parents' — they mostly just thought he was entertaining in small doses, though Charissa would never actually mention that detail in front of Luna — but that was all she had time for before they were shushed by another name being called.

Before too long, the Sorting was finished, the Headmaster had given his traditional nonsensical opening remarks, and the food had arrived. While talking with Hermione — to be perfectly honest, Hermione did most of the talking, consumed again in one of her wandering, energetic rambles, but Charissa didn't particularly mind — she kept a surreptitious ear on the new first years chatting next to her. She was pleased to hear that, while the rest didn't seem quite sure how to handle some of the more fundamental questions from Jasmine (and a second muggleborn in her year, though Charissa wasn't paying enough attention to catch the name), Luna smoothly answered every time. Of course, her answers only made any sense at all _most_ of the time, the others filled with the sort of lunacy she'd picked up over the years from her father. But Jasmine just played along with it with only a barely noticeable moment of hesitation. Charissa was a little impressed, to be honest — she hadn't even thought to warn her. She was sure Hermione would have felt compelled to argue with Luna, but with Charissa between them and enough else to distract her, they'd at least dodged that hex for the moment.

Before too long, the food had vanished, and the Headmaster was giving the same beginning-of-term announcements, though with a little more than Charissa had expected. She had known Remus was going to be announced as the new Defence professor last time, so that hadn't come as a surprise, but she hadn't had knowledge of any staff changes this time. The Runes professor had evidently retired — though since she wouldn't be starting that class until next year, she hadn't known him at all. She didn't recognise the name of the new Runes professor, but then she wouldn't expect herself to. She'd find out if she was any good next year.

But that led to an additional announcement, for a simple reason: the old Runes professor had been Head of Slytherin. So, the Headmaster had to announce his replacement.

Professor Vector.

Charissa frowned, feeling her head tilt a little, watching the woman in question stand and give an overly florid bow. She didn't know a lot about Professor Vector, to be perfectly honest. Her parents were foreign-born, though she had attended Hogwarts all seven years herself. In Slytherin, of course. She'd been on the school's competitive duelling team in her day — though, with Professor Flitwick around, she obviously didn't coach the current one — and was on the list of Head Girls she'd glanced at once, a couple years after Charissa's mother. She was exceptionally young to be a Master of any field — she'd been hired as Arithmancy professor when she'd been twenty-one or twenty-two, and Charissa was pretty sure this would only be her fifth year in the position. She'd heard from Dora that she was...excitable? Apparently, during lectures she had a habit of breaking off into long, meandering tangents, pacing back and forth in front of the class as she babbled, sometimes for minutes before she realised what she was doing and got back on track. As far as stereotypical Slytherin traits went, Dora had compared her favorably with her own mother. That is, clever and sometimes devious without being an irredeemably vindictive twat — which, unfortunately, was actually somewhat uncommon.

She wasn't entirely sure if having Professor Vector lead Slytherin was the best possible idea. From what little she knew, she didn't think she had the proper personality for the job. But she guessed she'd just have to wait and see.

* * *

Hermione had already gone up the stairs with Morag to the dorms, but Charissa was still waiting. Over there, gathered before the common room fireplace, were all of the first year Ravenclaws, getting the same introduction to the House from Professor Flitwick they'd got last year. From a few snippets of his speech she'd managed to catch from over here, she thought he might even be reciting the same one verbatim. She waited as patiently as she could while he talked about the general code of conduct for the House, further rules relating to the other Houses, a bit about finding their way around Hogwarts, passing out roommate assignments and their first term timetables, the shared Ravenclaw bulletin board on the wall — while most clubs and such barred first years from joining for various reasons, upper years willing to tutor struggling lower years often would put up a notice to that effect — directions to his office and his apartment within the castle, explaining his open-door policy. Then there was a quick round of questions, and Flitwick was bouncing off.

Charissa had always thought it was a little peculiar how energetic he was at his age.

As the pack of first years gradually broke apart, Charissa drifted over, walking toward where Jasmine, Luna, and a third girl were muttering to each other. Well, Jasmine and the third girl were muttering — Luna was mostly just standing there staring into space. Just as Charissa came within earshot, the third girl left toward the stairs up. But Jasmine was still muttering to herself. When Charissa was finally close enough, she realised Jasmine was cursing under her breath.

'It's okay, Jasmine,' Luna said, in her usual soft, wavy sort of voice. 'She didn't say anything I haven't heard before.'

That was all Charissa needed to hear. 'That girl's moving herself to the other room, right?'

Jasmine glanced at her, a tight look of fury still on her face. But then she met Charissa's eyes, and she let out a long sigh, the glare loosening into nothing. 'Yeah. I probably got more worked up by that than I should have. It just...reminded me of things.'

Right. Jasmine had mentioned at one point she'd been bullied a fair amount at that muggle school she used to go to. She'd never said exactly _why_ , but Charissa figured it wasn't really her business, if she didn't want to share. 'Well. If you ever have trouble with anyone, I can teach you a few jinxes that'll make them shut up. Though, try not to use them in front of professors or prefects.'

Jasmine just smiled a little at that.

On their slow wander over toward the stairs up to the dorms, Luna went babbling on about some trip she went on over the summer with her father searching for some made-up monstrosity. Charissa was doing her best not to comment, but she saw Jasmine trying to hide an amused sort of grin. That's good, that they were getting along at least decently already — better than she'd had any right to expect, to be completely honest with herself. They were just a couple steps away from the stairs up when the grin slipped off Jasmine's face, and she suddenly looked uncomfortable, confused. A step later, and she suddenly halted.

Charissa came to a stop to herself, only a single step away from the first of the stairs. 'Jasmine? What's wrong?'

'Erm.' Jasmine blinked to herself a couple times, tipping from one foot to the other, frowning, her eyes tracking over the stairs behind Charissa and the wall to either side. 'Where are we going?'

This oddness was oddly familiar. Charissa couldn't quite place what it reminded her of, but it definitely reminded her of something. 'Er, the girl's dorms?'

'Is that where Luna went?'

Charissa blinked, turned back toward the stairs. Luna was still standing there, three stairs up, giving her a weird look back — but then, most of Luna's looks were weird. 'You can't see her?'

Now it was Jasmine giving her a weird look, as though she'd gone completely mad. 'What are you talking about?'

Okay. This was weird. She was starting to have an odd niggling in her head, like she knew exactly where she'd seen this before. She took a couple steps back to Jasmine, wrapped an arm around hers, then started trying to drag her to the stairs. But she wouldn't come. She kept trying to turn the two of them away from stairs, pulling to the side, and after a couple seconds shoved Charissa off, babbling some annoyed something at her Charissa wasn't really paying attention to. Because she suddenly realised where she'd seen this before.

Jasmine was being affected by an avoidance ward. There were a variety of different avoidance wards, but the one Charissa saw most commonly was the muggle-repelling ward — which was exactly where she'd seen this before, when Jasmine's parents had gone out into the clearing around their house and suddenly couldn't see the place anymore, until Mum charmed them through it. There _was_ an avoidance ward on both of the dorm stairs, she knew. But they were sex-based wards. The boys' stairs were warded against girls, and the girls' stairs warded against boys — only prefects and professors could go up the stairs of the opposite sex. Which was why Charissa had never even _seen_ the stairs to the boys' rooms, couldn't even _point_ to where they were if she wanted to.

But that didn't make _any sense_. The only reason Jasmine wouldn't be able to see the girls' stairs was if she were a boy — which, since she had about as much modesty around Charissa as Dora did, she knew she wasn't. But, well, that made her think of a question to ask. 'Jasmine, can you see any stairs leading up out of here?'

Jasmine gave her another weird look at that. 'Yeah, just one, over there.' Eyes following her pointed finger, Charissa saw — a blank stone wall.

Well. That was interesting.

'Come on,' Charissa said with a slight sigh. Again taking Jasmine's arm with hers, she started leading them toward the exit.

'Erm, where are we going?'

'Flitwick's office. He should still be there another hour or so.' A push through the door and they were out in the hall, Charissa immediately turning them in the proper direction. 'For some reason, you can't see the girls' stairs. I'm sure Flitwick will have some idea what's going on.' Actually, she had an idea herself what was going on, but she'd rather have Flitwick confirm it for her before making any claims that would likely sound outrageous to her muggleborn cousin.

Jasmine didn't say anything, just shrugged, that odd look still on her face.

Before too long, only a very brief walk from the common room, they came to a door hanging halfway open — when Flitwick said he had an 'open door' policy, he did mean that literally. Charissa poked her head around the door, finding the familiar room empty save for Flitwick scratching away with a quill. 'Professor?'

He glanced up, a smile spreading across his face a second later. 'Ah, Miss Potter. Come in, come in.' As soon as she did, dragging Jasmine along with her, Flitwick added, 'And Miss Palmer, was it?' After a nod from her, 'I take it you two know each other?'

Charissa said, 'She's a cousin through my mother, sir.'

That bit of information might seem unnecessary, but dropping it had been calculated. If she hadn't, Flitwick's grin wouldn't have just spread even wider — she knew Mum had been one of his all-time favourite students. 'I see.' Normally, that exact comment might seem like uninterested filler, but Charissa hadn't missed the sudden focusing of interest on his voice. From how Jasmine straightened slightly in the chair next to her, she hadn't either. 'Anyway, what can I do for you two young ladies?'

'Jasmine can't see the dorm stairs.' No point stalling, really. It was starting to get late anyway, and she'd really rather be in bed now.

For a second, Flitwick just blinked at her, a quick flick of the eyes to take in a distinctly uncomfortable-looking Jasmine. 'Neither of them?'

'She can see the boys' stairs, but not the girls'.'

Flitwick made a quick humming sound, a short nod. Then he turned to Jasmine, pulling out his wand. 'I'm just going to do a couple quick diagnostic and examination charms, nothing serious. You probably won't even notice it happening. Alright?' Jasmine glanced at Charissa before nodding. The whole process took maybe thirty seconds — Flitwick silently performing the charms with a few casual flicks, bringing a few hovering coloured lights into existence that meant absolutely nothing to Charissa — before Flitwick let out a longer hum, setting his wand down before him on his desk. After a couple seconds, 'This does complicate things, doesn't it?'

'I was right, wasn't I?' Of course, she just _had_ to be. This year wouldn't have been fun enough without something extra to worry about.

'If you're thinking what I think you're thinking.'

Jasmine, eyes flicking between the two of them, obviously hadn't failed to recognise all this meant something to the them it didn't to her. And she was clearly starting to get annoyed about it. 'Okay. And what is it you're thinking?'

As he often did when talking about something more complicated, Flitwick came to the explanation in something of a roundabout way. 'It was discovered long ago, so long ago we're not even sure exactly when or by whom, that the natural energies within all of us don't necessarily flow identically from person to person. There are patterns, specific traits held in common by people with one similarity or another. For example, part-goblin as I am, some magics will recognise me as human, but others goblin, depending on exactly which peculiar pattern the specific magic is designed to detect.

'It has long been known that there are regularly observable patterns in the natural magic that each sex share with each other that distinguishes them from the opposite. These differences aren't so drastic as to affect the magic either sex is capable of — there has never been any solid evidence that one sex is more proficient than the other with any sort of magic at all — but they are almost universally regular and identifiable.

'However, perhaps peculiarly, it was discovered millennia ago — by a famous wardsmith of south Asia — that the sex of a person's body doesn't necessarily match the sex of a person's magic. This is generally not a good thing. There is a reason these characteristic differences exist — when body and magic are mismatched, it can lead to dangerously unbalanced energies, accumulation or release when and where there shouldn't be. Left alone for long enough, this unbalance more often than not leads to psychological issues down the road. None of it pleasant. Fortunately, the condition is somewhat rare — something like one in seven thousand people, if I remember correctly.'

Jasmine could hardly be called a slow person. There was a reason, after all, she'd been sent to Ravenclaw. That ramble was more than enough for her to see what he was getting at. 'You're saying I have boy magic?' She said it hesitantly, doubtfully, as though the concept were so odd it hardly made the slightest bit of sense.

But Flitwick just nodded at her. 'Essentially, yes. Though,' he said, shrugging, 'it is a bit more than that, I suppose. When we say _magic_ like this what we're really saying is our minds, our souls. If you follow my meaning.'

Her eyes narrowed in a frown, Jasmine just stared at Flitwick for long seconds. Finally, she said, 'And is there anything to be done about that?'

'Yes and no. No, there are no known ways to alter a person's soul in such a way. But yes, the body is much more malleable.'

The only response Jasmine managed to make to that was a long, soft, ' _Eehhhhh..._ '

And then Flitwick was babbling away again — mostly about owling a couple people, to find someone for Jasmine to talk to about this stuff — but this time he didn't stay sitting back in his chair. He was up and across the room, pulling open one drawer than another from a cabinet, fiddling through the contents. He interrupted himself, talking about needing to get in touch with an alchemist in probably a couple years, with a sudden, 'There we are!' He bounced over back to his desk, handing across to Jasmine a metallic talisman on a chain. 'That will get you through all the wards no problem. You don't have to wear it at all times, just as you physically cross the wardline into and out of any warded area — the dorms, lavatories, bathrooms, showers. There is no reason to hide exactly why — as you might have noticed from how quickly Miss Potter here figured out what was going on, this is not something most people will find unusual. I will get back to you as soon as I get a response from one of my Healer friends.

'Any questions you'd like to ask me, as long as we're here?'

Hardly a minute later, the two of them were climbing the stairs to the girls' dorms, Jasmine rather peculiarly quiet. Charissa thought she had some justification to be. She could imagine how all this could be rather hard for someone to wrap their head around. When they got to the first years' floor, Charissa hesitated, watching Jasmine slowly drift over to one of the doors, where she stood for long seconds. 'You okay?'

Jasmine glanced over at her, shrugged. 'This is just weird. Wondering what I'm going to say to Luna if she asks.'

'You have actually met your new roommate, right?'

A narrow smile twitched over her face at that. A smile which promptly vanished a moment later. 'My mother is going to kill me when she finds out.'

Charissa shrugged, trying to seem unconcerned. 'I'm sure Mum will be able to talk some sense into her. I wouldn't worry about it.'

At least, she hoped so. Her second year at Hogwarts hadn't even started yet, and she already had far too many things to worry about.

* * *

Hesper and Alexis Gaunt _— In case anyone's wondering, their great-grandmother (mother's father's mother) is Merope Gaunt. The Lord Gaunt mentioned is the only son of Merope Gaunt, but his father is not Tom Riddle, and neither is he a Dark Lord of any sort. It'll come up later._

[apartment] _— Before anyone says the proper Britishism should be "flat," I am perfectly aware of that. And no, it isn't. The use here is an older sense of the word._

* * *

 _About Jasmine's gender stuff: This will not be a major focus of the plot, just something going on in the background, mentioned every once in a while. It's not really super important, to the point I questioned whether I should even do it at all, but I got ideas, and it happened. So meh._

 _The next chapters, covering the second year, will not be strictly chronological, each of the three instead following a single topic from beginning to end. If I do it right, it shouldn't be too confusing._

 _Until next time,  
_ _~Wings_


	10. Second Year — Sympathy for a Werewolf

_September 19, 1992_

* * *

It was immediately clear that Hermione was uncomfortable about something.

The two of them were sitting, as they so often were, in the library. It hadn't taken long last year for Hermione to find a table she particularly liked — squirreled far in the back corner, snug between shelves under one of the tall, stained-glass windows. The last couple weeks, they'd had Jasmine and Luna joining them more often than not. At first, it had seemed like Hermione might protest — she certainly preferred a calm and quiet study environment, and was far from shy in enforcing her opinion — but it had quickly become apparent that the two younger Ravenclaws were, for the most part, just as focused as they were. Sometimes Jasmine wanted to talk out one topic or another with them, usually directly related to something from class but at times only tangentially, but Hermione was perfectly willing to participate most of the time, and would simply put up a silencing barrier around herself and let Charissa handle it the times she wasn't.

This time, they were alone. Much as Charissa had expected, Luna had handled introducing Ginny Weasley and Jasmine to each other after just a couple of days, and the two had hit it off almost instantly. Some hours ago, Jasmine had gone with Gwyneira and Ginny down to the grounds to borrow (steal) a couple of school brooms and mess around. Somewhat to her surprise, Luna had drifted after them — far as Charissa knew, Luna had absolutely none of the interest the other three had for quidditch, so she couldn't imagine why she felt like tagging along. Not that Charissa particularly cared, really. As long as Luna had legitimate friends, the details didn't matter to her.

And she had heard from Morag yesterday that Jasmine had already gotten into a screaming match in the common room with a couple people who had started in on Luna with the merciless teasing Charissa had honestly expected to be constant by now. So, that was going well.

Thus, Hermione's discomfort couldn't have anything to do with their usual hangers-on. But it was obvious something was bothering her. Neither of them had really said a word for over an hour now — to be completely honest, she found Hermione's lack of a need most people seemed to have to fill silence with pointless blather a bit of a relief — but it was still obvious. She kept shifting in her chair, more frequently and awkwardly than usual. She would occasionally let out a little huff. She was turning pages far less often than she usually would. All was subtle enough Charissa wasn't sure anyone who hadn't spent hours and hours sitting next to her in these very chairs would ever notice.

Normally, she wouldn't draw attention to it. She knew she hated it when people unilaterally put her on the spot about most anything. But it was starting to get a bit distracting. 'What is it?'

Hermione started — only slightly, the smallest of jolts as her attention snapped back to her surroundings. 'Huh?'

'It's obvious something's bothering you. We're alone back here, so you might as well tell me.'

When she glanced up to check, she saw Hermione was staring back at her, her face pulled into a doubtful frown, teeth working at her bottom lip as she so often did. After a short sigh, she gave a hesitant combination nod/shrug. 'You've known Professor Lupin for a long time, right?'

Okay. This was not the discussion topic she had been expecting. Not that she'd been entirely sure what to expect, but still. 'Yes.'

'Rather well, if I understand correctly.'

'Yes. I've been calling him Uncle Remus for as long as I can remember. We're not actually related — he's just been friends with my dad since forever. Why?'

'I've just been—' Hermione cut off suddenly, glancing around the rest of the library for an instant before opening her mouth again. 'He's a werewolf, isn't he?'

Oh.

Well. This was going to be fun.

Charissa pulled out her wand and, ignoring the flinch from Hermione, cast on the air around them one of the more handy spells Dad had taught her. It was rather like a silencing barrier, though not quite — sound emanating from within the charm's area of effect was muffled, preventing people from outside its range understanding anything spoken, but allowed sound from outside to pass through unmolested. Dad suggested it was very handy for any private conversations she might want to have she didn't want anyone walking in on. Only by getting close enough would anyone be able to hear, and she should hear herself anyone approaching before they could. Just perfect for this sort of situation.

'Yes,' Charissa said, setting her wand down on the table — and doing her best to ignore the obvious relief passing Hermione's face. 'He is.'

Hermione was silent a moment, as though reevaluating everything in light of this new piece of information. 'I thought he might be.'

'Noticed we always had a substitute around the full moons?' She'd hoped, since the full moon was always on a different day of the week and how Hogwarts class schedules shuffled, there wouldn't be enough obvious data points for any one person to figure it out. An observant person could notice at mealtimes Remus didn't look so good at regular intervals, but most students hardly spared the professors a glance.

'I did notice that, but there are other medical conditions that worsen at the full moon. Even if it were werewolf-related, I also thought it was possible he was being called out to fight or ward places against them — he _is_ recognised as an expert in such things. I at first dismissed the theory of him being a werewolf himself out of hand.'

Charissa had to blink at that. 'Really.'

Sounding a little sheepish, Hermione said, 'Well, yes. It was so much of a coincidence I thought the conclusion was too convenient to be true.'

'Okay. What do you mean?'

'The name, mostly. In Roman mythology, his first name is identical to that of the co-founder of the City of Rome — though details vary from version to version, it is common to depict both he and his brother as being partially raised by a wolf. And then there's his surname. We usually use the term lycanthropy to refer to the condition in general. But that's from Greek — derived from _lykanþropía_. There's a Latin term, too — _febris lupīna_. That just seemed like too much of a coincidence for me.'

Charissa couldn't help but smile a little. That was just so very _Hermione_. 'Remus is a not uncommon name, and his family traces descent from a somewhat famous wizard from the Fourteenth Century who was a wolf animagus — hence, Lupin. It is a rather odd coincidence, I guess.'

'Yeah.' Hermione hesitated a long moment, staring at her book in silence. There was more coming, obviously, but Charissa just waited for her to get it out. 'He's okay, right?'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, I read a bit about werewolves. There's a lot of material out there about how lycanthropy causes, essentially, a form of psychopathy, anger issues, that sort of—'

'No.' Hermione started, looking up at her warily and with perhaps a tinge of fear. Her voice had been a bit harsh, she would admit, but she had to get Hermione off that train of thought. 'You have to understand the blood purity culture is especially strong in Britain. Anything that makes someone anything other than a good, pureblooded witch or wizard is feared or reviled as appropriate. This includes werewolves. Do not read anything on the subject by a British author dating anywhere between now and roughly the Sixteenth Century — it's all shite, propaganda from the same people who, were they in charge, wouldn't even permit people like you a wand.'

Hermione was silent another long moment, her eyes falling into an oddly unfocused, glazed sort of look as they always did when she was focusing harder on her library of memory than she was the present moment. Eventually, 'So all that stuff about how a werewolf is inherently violent, can't really help himself, has lost part of his humanity, is really nothing more than a beast—'

'Complete trash,' Charissa said with a nod. 'You definitely don't want to be around one on the night of the full moon, but on every other day they're perfectly normal people.'

'And Professor Lupin is decent.'

Charissa had to smile slightly at that. 'Only one of the nicer people I know. To a fault, really. Over the summer, I've had to find other people to start getting duelling practice in — he refuses to even mock fight me.' Which would be news to Hermione, since Hermione _wasn't_ one of the people she'd asked, and not just because she figured the other girl had vanishingly little interest. With the way Hermione's memory worked, she would vividly remember every single jinx and hex Charissa hit her with forever. Charissa really didn't like the thought of that.

For another couple seconds, Hermione considered that. Then she nodded, and returned to reading, all hints of distraction gone. Smiling to herself a little, Charissa did the same.

* * *

(Pulled from _The Daily Prophet_ , September 23rd, 1992)

 _ **Werewolf at Hogwarts!**_

 _Ever since being appointed High Enchanter of þe Wizengamot, Albus Dumbledore has been a constant subject of controversy. Þose who have attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, þe prestigious state academy where þe High Enchanter is in his þirty-sevenþ year as Headmaster, are more intimately familiar wið his more peculiar proclivities — particularly in his hiring decisions. In recent weeks, some have quietly protested þe naming of þe abnormally young Ariþmancy Master Septima Adelheid Vector as Head of Slyðerin House, but some decisions have been far less innocuous._

 _Any recent graduate of Hogwarts would certainly remember þe academy's gargantuan groundskeeper. Rubeus Hagrid's half-giant heritage, and his perhaps inappropriate adoration of creatures easily deadly to anyone of human size and durability, has long been common knowledge. After much debate among þe Wizengamot, among þe Hogwarts' Governors, and public fora everywhere, it was eventually decided to trust þe High Enchanter's judgement, and let his unusual appointment stand._

 _Þe appointment of one Master Filius Flitwick as Professor of Charms, and later Head of Ravenclaw House, was equally controversial. As many readers may remember, Master Flitwick is þe grandson of a goblin excommunicated from þeir community for sedition — þat sedition being þe act which resulted in Master Flitwick's moðer, as such relations wið humans are a grievous crime under goblin law. His appointment to þe position was viciously protested by boð human and goblin representatives, but was ultimately allowed to stand as well._

 _Þis time, we here at_ Þe Daily Prophet _feel þe High Enchanter has gone too far. We can now confirm þat Master Remus John Lupin, appointed Professor of Defence last year, is a werewolf, contaminated in his childhood by none oðer þan þe infamous terrorist Fenrir Greyback._

 _Þis reporter met wið a number of current Hogwarts students, and þe picture is..._

* * *

'This— This— She—'

'Calm down, Hermione. It's fine.'

'She quoted us! She took everything out of context and edited the wording a bit to make it sound as awful as possible, but she quoted us! She doesn't name you, but this bit here about _indoctrinating students with controversial beliefs_ is almost exactly what you said about the British culture of blood purity!'

'I did notice that.'

'But we never talked to her!'

'I know.'

'What are we going to do about this? We can't let this Skeeter woman get away with ruining Professor Lupin like this!'

'We're not going to, Hermione. I think you forget who my father is.'

* * *

(Pulled from _The Daily Prophet_ , September 27th, 1992)

 _ **Retraction and Apologies**_

 _It has been brought to our attention þat þere were a number of irregularities wiðin an article printed in last Wednesday's issue. Þe editing staff here at_ Þe Daily Prophet _would like to make a number of clarifications, corrections, and apologies._

 _Þose who read þe story in question — front page,_ Werewolf at Hogwarts — _will recall two of þe four sources of direct quotes were attributed to one Hermione Jean Granger (13), a second-year Hogwarts student, in conjunction wið a second, unnamed source, identified only as anoðer second-year girl. Þe editing staff was not aware of þe identity of þe second source at printing, but we have since been informed þe girl in question was Charissa Cassiopeia (12), þe young heir apparent of þe Noble House of Potter._

 _Writing on behalf of his daughter, Lord James Bonifatius Potter informed us þe two girls did not approach Rita Skeeter, þe primary auþor of þe piece. Þe quotes used were, in fact, pulled from a private conversation between þe two, carried out behind correctly-cast privacy charms. According to Lord Potter, boð girls are willing to swear before officers of þe Wizengamot þat þey never met Skeeter, nor were þey aware þeir conversation was overheard. A course of action which may become necessary — due to þeir ages, any means Skeeter must have used to eavesdrop past wards such as þose þey used would be in violation of þe 1826 Child Protection Act._

 _Furðermore, Lord Potter wishes to clarify þat þe quotes taken from Miss Granger were misapplied, intentionally manipulated by Skeeter to furðer defame Master Lupin. Miss Granger was not speaking directly of Master Lupin, but paraphrasing what she had read of werewolves, which led directly to Miss Potter's summary of anti-werewolf sentiment common in British society — criticism common among progressive voices in þe Wizengamot, Lord Potter himself included, but cast by Skeeter as suspect indoctrination instilled by Master Lupin._

Þe Daily Prophet _would like to apologise to our readership for þis breach of proper journalistic etiquette. For her unacceptable meðods, and pending a criminal investigation, Rita Skeeter has been suspended wiðout pay. We also must apologise to Charissa Potter and Hermione Granger. We will take greater care wið confirming þe proper meðods are used by our reporters in future._

 _But, regrettably, þat is not þe end of irregularities found in þis single article. We have also received correspondence from þe office of þe Director of Law Enforcement, inquiring exactly how it was Skeeter discovered who passed lycanþropy to Master Lupin. Master Lupin had only been six years old at þe time. Due to his age at þe time of his infection, þe specifics of þe incident were sealed under þe 1889 Privacy of Victims Act. Þe fact of Master Lupin's lycanþropy is not protected information, but þat it was Fenrir Greyback who infected him is. Even þose who knew of his condition, including individuals from several Noble Houses, were not told þis detail. We are told þe Department of Law Enforcement is also investigating how Skeeter came across such protected information._

 _Furðer, it is presumed Greyback's assault was revenge against Master Remus Lupin's faðer, Master Lyall Lupin, a dark creatures expert recognised internationally as þe contemporary auþority on dementors, who volunteered to aid þe Department for þe Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures in combatting Greyback's terrorist organisation. Master Lyall Lupin was himself murdered, reportedly on Greyback's orders, seven years later, þe next monþ posthumously awarded þe Order of Myrðin, Second Class. Contrary to Skeeter's inferences, at no time was Master Remus Lupin under þe direct influence of þe infamous Pack, and obviously has little cause to sympaþise wið Greyback's movement._

 _Þerefore, we offer a retraction for all assertions regarding þe temperament and motivations of Master Remus John Lupin, and apologise for any undue distress Skeeter's unprofessional meðods may have caused. However, now þat his lycanþropy has been revealed, we here at_ Þe Daily Prophet _believe wheðer such an individual should be allowed a professorship at Hogwarts is still a valid topic of concern._

 _We will be keeping abreast of furðer developments._

* * *

'Did we just get someone arrested?'

'Quite possibly.'

'I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that.'

'Hermione, it is unquestionable that Skeeter woman broke the law at some point along the line, writing that horrible article of hers. And this probably wasn't the first time, either.'

'But the only reason they're even looking is because of who your father is.'

'They didn't mention it, but they got an angry letter from Sirius too, and that probably helped as well. But that's just the way it works sometimes. Besides, wouldn't you rather our _hopelessly archaic aristocracy_ , as Mum likes to call it, work for you rather than against you?'

'I suppose. I'm still not comfortable with it.'

'I guess I can't stop you.'

* * *

 _October 12, 1992_

* * *

'And you're sure he's not going to be annoyed with us?'

Charissa withheld her annoyed sign by the very tip of her tongue. That had to be the twelfth time Hermione had asked that question. Hermione did tend to worry over things more than she should — she thought the habit was likely a consequence of her peculiar memory — and it really did get annoying sometimes. Especially when Hermione was worrying over something she really didn't have to. 'Yes, I'm sure he won't be annoyed with us. A little embarrassed because of _when_ he's seeing us, but he'll get over it.'

'Well.' Hermione worked at her lip with her teeth for a moment, frowning to herself. 'If you're sure.'

'Yes, very sure.' Without giving Hermione another second to dither further, Charissa pushed the door open, stepping into Uncle Remus's Hogwarts apartments. She'd hardly been here at all since starting, just a couple visits. Mostly just dropping things off and picking things up, once staying a while for tea around Remus's birthday — Sirius had shown up out of the blue halfway through and made a nuisance of himself, so she'd fled after a little. So she was familiar enough with the place. Very sparsely furnished and decorated, enough so that the bare stone of the walls and floor were still mostly visible. Remus hadn't had a lot to move in with him, after all. A bank of stained glass -lined windows looked out over the forest, the partially-risen sun passing through the coloured parts setting the bare sitting room to rainbow sparkling. But she ignored it, kept walking through, moving toward the room where she knew she would find him.

Remus's bedroom was a little more filled than the previous — though even then just because he'd combined bedroom and personal office, which were two separate rooms for most professors. Bookshelves lining the walls, a simple desk strewn with semi-regularly organised piles of parchment at one gap in the endless books, a few flickering photographs hanging above. The floor was mostly covered in an assortment of soft rugs, which made Charissa feel vaguely uncomfortable for still wearing her shoes.

And in the bed, propped up against the headboard with a book open in his lap, was Remus. 'Charissa, what are you doing here?' His voice was weak and a little hoarse, though stronger than she knew it would have been even an hour ago. He looked a little pale, a little drawn, like he was both coming off some sort of illness and hadn't gotten enough sleep. Which was true, in a sense. His eyes flicked behind her as she walked a little further into the room. 'And Miss Granger too?'

With an easy shrug, Charissa said, 'We have a free period right now, thought we'd drop in.'

Remus gave her a suspicious frown. 'Don't second-year Ravenclaws have History right now?'

'Yes, that's what I meant.' It was actually surprisingly common among Ravenclaws to skip History lectures entirely. Most picked up the material from the book better than the useless Professor's aimless rambling, and just reading it was far faster than his slow drone. Charissa had had to get a sixth-year prefect to back her up on it being a more efficient use of time to just _not_ go for Hermione to finally agree to study with her instead. Today excluded, anyway.

For a moment, Remus hesitated — an internal war between what he _should_ say as a professor and his knowledge of just how much of a pathetic waste of time those lectures were — before just letting it pass. 'Alright. But I'm not much in a mood to entertain right now, you know.'

Charissa nodded. The full moon had been just last night — that _was_ exactly why they were here. 'We know. Hermione just had something for you.'

An eyebrow softly raised, Remus's eyes tipped over to Hermione, who was still standing a bit behind Charissa's shoulder, awkwardly shifting in place a little. After a few seconds, Hermione huffed to herself lowly enough Charissa almost couldn't hear it. She stepped around her to stand just a couple steps off from the side of Remus's bed. 'I wanted to apologise, Professor.' A momentary flash of surprise crossed Remus's face. 'If I hadn't interrogated Charissa about you, none of this would have—'

'No, Miss Granger,' he said, shaking his head with a tired sort of smile. 'This is hardly your fault. To be perfectly honest I was a bit surprised it took this long for it to come out. I managed to go through all seven years when I was a student here without more than a few of my classmates finding out, but professors are under much greater scrutiny than students — the Defence professor perhaps even greater than the others. It was inevitable it would come out eventually, something I had several long arguments with the Headmaster about before finally accepting his offer. Someone as observant and clever as you would certainly figure it out before long. As Ravenclaws are so fond of saying, curiosity is a virtue — I can hardly fault you that.

'So, your apology is entirely unnecessary, Miss Granger. You have done nothing wrong.'

Charissa could tell Hermione had absolutely no idea how to respond to that. No matter how many times Charissa had told her she had nothing to worry about, Hermione still expected Remus to be angry with her over her part in that Skeeter article last month, so she was completely unprepared for him being so _not_ angry at her he wouldn't even let her finish her apology. But, then, Remus was like that — not that Charissa had expected her to really know that. The sum total of their interaction had been in class, and a couple somewhat more informal sessions over the summer, not exactly the best way to feel out the other's personality so well.

It probably didn't help that Hermione was a bit obsessive about not stepping on anyone's toes, giving no cause for offense to authority figures especially. Or at least she was when she'd been sleeping properly — she seemed to grow gradually more abrasive the more tired she got — but these days Charissa hardly had to resort to sleeping charms at all anymore.

'Well, erm.' Hermione visibly shook off a bit of her disorientation, reached into a pocket. 'I, er, got this for you, anyway.' She held her little peace offering out to him — a small, single-dose glass potion bottle.

An odd mix of curiosity and hesitation on his voice, Remus slowly took the bottle, held it up in a patch of sunlight. 'What is it?' he asked after a moment.

'It's a combination of an analgesic and a psychostimulant—' Hermione broke off at the vaguely confused look on Remus's face. 'I'm sorry, those are muggle medical terms, aren't they?' He just smiled at that, nodding a little. 'It's a mix of a pain relief potion, an invigorating potion, and should also have a little bit of a restorative effect as well.'

'Ah.' Remus gave her something of a peculiar look, frowning very slightly. 'I certainly appreciate the thought, Miss Granger, but, firstly, normal pain relief potions do not work on the lingering symptoms of—'

'Excuse me, Professor, but I know that. The standard analgesic people usually have on hand is designed for surface tissues — skin and muscle, mostly. I looked it up, and potions designed to treat tendon and ligament pain _do_ reduce the deep tissue aches associated with lycanthropy. That's what I put in there.'

He gave her another long look, now not quite frowning, more of a steady thoughtful look. 'I have a suspicion that, were I to point out one can't simply mix together potions like this, you'd have a response for that as well.'

Hermione nodded. 'I found a book of reaction tables in the library — a more comprehensive one than we use in our class, I mean. After running the arithmancy with a few combinations, I finally found an analgesic of the right type and an invigorating draught that wouldn't react with each other. I did have to modify the invigorating draught part a little bit, but it should work.'

Since Remus was giving Hermione a strongly disbelieving expression, Charissa decided to contribute. 'Neville and I tested her first batch yesterday. It works.' Not that she was going to explain _how_ they had tested it. She didn't think Remus would be exactly pleased with the idea of the two of them hexing each other just so they could see if Hermione's experimental potion worked. Nor Hermione, for that matter — she hadn't exactly offered details when she'd given her opinion.

Giving the two of them something of an odd look, he picked up his wand from a little bedside table, vanished the stopper with a tap. Placing his wand down on his book, he switched the bottle to his right hand, carefully tilted it until just a couple drops settled in his palm. After placing the bottle gently upright on the table, he picked up his wand again, the air suddenly sparking with one diagnostic charm after another centred on the couple drops of potion in his hand, flipping from one to the next so quickly Charissa noticed Hermione blinking with something between confusion and awe.

Then Remus was done, staring at the couple drops of potion with a blank look oddly similar to Hermione's. 'Miss Granger... You brewed this yourself? You didn't get Professor Bourne or one of the upper years to help you?'

'No.' There were the slightest traces of an offended tone on the edges of her voice.

For a few seconds, he just sat blinking at Hermione. 'This is _really good_ work.'

'Thank you, Professor.'

'No, Miss Granger, I don't think you understand. Mixing potions like this — and definitely whatever you did to modify the invigorating draught — is _NEWT-level_ work. I wouldn't expect most of our students to be able to do this until nearly _the end of sixth year_.'

Hermione was silent for a long, long moment. 'Oh.' She turned to look over her shoulder at Charissa, a very peculiar look on her face. Charissa just shrugged at her. As far as she knew, it was _technically_ true that this wasn't something they were taught until sixth year — hence Hermione needing to visit the library in the first place — but that was less to do with the _complexity_ of the material and more the _order_ it was generally taught in. It wasn't really as difficult as Remus made it sound.

Not that Charissa was going to bother pointing that out. If they both wanted to be impressed with Hermione's accomplishment, she saw no real reason to talk them out of it.

* * *

(Pulled from _The Daily Prophet_ , November 19th, 1992)

 _ **Regarding Professor Remus Lupin**_

 _In light of þe recent public discourse concerning þe appointment of certain staff at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, we feel þere are a few þings all concerned parties should keep in mind._

 _Firstly, as shockingly few seem to realise, while þe Headmaster may select an individual he or she feels appropriate for whatever position, þat appointment must be confirmed by a consensus of þree-quarters of þe Board of Governors. Secondly, while þe Department of Education may have more direct auþority over þe oðer institutions wiðin our nation, Hogwarts is comparatively independent — since þe school technically predates þe United Council, þis is not truly surprising. While oðer institutions exist by a charter under þe Ministry, þe relationship between Hogwarts and þe government is more one of mutual contractual obligations. Disregarding certain emergency situations, neiðer þe Department of Education nor þe Wizengamot have þe legal auþority to remove any Hogwarts staff. Þat right is held solely by þe Board of Governors._

 _When we interviewed Professor Lupin prior to his appointment, he made no attempt to hide his condition. Indeed, a significant portion of our conversations wið him involved exactly how he planned to protect his own students on þe full moons. On þose nights, Professor Lupin is escorted by Professor Filius Flitwick to a room þe two eminently qualified wizards specially designed, every surface saturated wið werewolf-repelling wards, þe room itself hidden behind a weave of locking and sealing magics so intricate no student could possibly reach Professor Lupin while he is not safe to be around, even should þey try. Þeir precautions were confirmed sufficient by þree independent experts — one Auror, one wardmaster, one cursebreaker — before we even signed off on þe plan, and þe continued integrity of þe room is confirmed by an Auror on a monþly basis._

 _As a few oðer opinion pieces sent in to_ Þe Prophet _demonstrate, no one who has ever actually met Professor Lupin would þink him a likely þreat to þose around him þe oðer twenty-eight days out of þe monþ. In fact, Professor Lupin is so soft-spoken and unassuming some of us at first þought him an improper match for þe Defence position. While he is raðer reluctant to speak of such þings, and certainly hasn't taken to pontificating in þe classroom, his personal political opinions many would find to be a bit radical — some of þe Light Houses more progressive on creature–being laws, however, would not find much to disagree on. In our deliberations before confirming his appointment, none of us on þe Board of Governors found anyþing particularly objectionable about Professor Lupin's temperament._

 _Between þe two of us, we have six grandchildren currently attending Hogwarts. Þe þought þat we would willfully subject þe children of our Houses to indoctrination or perhaps even violence is simply ridiculous._

 _Some may wonder why we even took as much of a risk as þis, no matter how well-managed it may be. But þe answer is really quite simple._

 _Þe two of us hardly agree on anyþing. We cannot count þe times we've delayed a motion in þe Wizengamot because we couldn't stop arguing wið each oðer. We fully expect þe fact þat we are jointly signing þis open letter to come as quite a surprise to any number of people. But þere is at least one þing we've found we agree on perfectly, þe most relevant reason þe boð of us give Professor Remus Lupin our full support._

 _Our children's ability to defend þemselves should never — ever — be compromised._

 _Þe Hogwarts Board of Governors confirmed þe appointment of Master Remus John Lupin to Professor of Defence Against þe Dark Arts due solely to him simply being þe best wizard for þe job. Raðer þan continue to take up space in_ Þe Prophet _wið þis pointless public debate, anyone who objects may send þeir grievances by owl to þe Board of Governors, or eiðer of us personally._

 _We cannot guarantee anyone will actually read þem._

Signed—

Leuteris Makarios, Lord Regent, NMA House of Gaunt

Augusta Victoria, Lady Regnant, NMA House of Longbottom

* * *

 _lykanþropía (λυκανθρωπία) — transliteration changed a bit to match the orthography I'm using in this story. I also considered changing "lycanthropy" itself to match (lykanþropy), but decided that would just be more confusing than necessary._

 _febris lupīna — meaning something like "fever of wolves"_

Excommunicated _— Refers to a goblin tradition by which criminals are stripped of all legal status, essentially declared non-entities (which is why the name of the goblin in question isn't used — the right to a name is also stripped)_

[full moon] _— I do check a calendar to put the dates on the days of the week I want, and it does include the moon phases. There really was a full moon on October 11, 1992._

Hermione's dropping of medical terminology _— Hermione's parents have general medical texts sitting around from their med school days (dental surgeons are fully trained medical doctors), and it's possible she's read all of them. A little atypical vocabulary for her age, I guess, but you'd be surprised what kids can pick up depending on what they're exposed to._

United Council _— The formal name of the magical government of the region, the United Council of Celtic Peoples. (Some people say Gaelic instead, but there are complex political connotations.) It's sort of a union of five nations: Brīþa (England), Cymru (Wales), Alba (Scotland), Éire (Ireland), and Brech (the Brittany region of France). The situation with the last two is a bit more complicated, and I may or may not elaborate in-story later. "Britain" properly only refers to Brīþa, but over time the word came to be applied to the whole conglomerate through synecdoche — a use that is often controversial with the people of Éire and Brech._

[ _Between þe two of us, we have six grandchildren currently attending Hogwarts._ ] _— in case anyone's curious, here you go; Augusta Longbottom's grandkids: Neville L (second-year Hufflepuff), Gwyneira L (first-year Gryffindor); Leuteris Gaunt's grandkids: Caelestis G (fourth-year Slytherin), Sorcha Selwyn (third-year Ravenclaw), Hesperos and Alexis G (first-year Slytherin)_

Lord Regent and Lady Regnant _— More specific titles as appropriate. Gaunt using Lord Regent is something of a technicality: his mother is still alive, and never technically relinquished the title, so_ _she_ _is Lady Gaunt, but he's been acting in her place for some time now. Longbottom's situation is slightly more complicated. In my headcanon working here, Neville's grandmother inherited the title directly from her father — whether women can inherit the title directly like that varies from House to House. However, if she_ _ **hadn't** been born a Longbottom, and had instead_ _married into the House, her title may or may not be different depending on the particulars of the arrangement. As a contrasting example, Lily's title would be Lady Consort — she is the wife of the Lord Regnant of a Noble House, sharing all the rights and responsibilities he has, but should he die first, Charissa would become Lady Regnant, and Lily would be reduced to simply a member of the House. Yeah, I just have to make things complicated, I know._

 _NMA — Probably obvious, but print abbreviation for "Noble and Most Ancient". In case anyone was wondering, the Ancient Houses don't have any special rights above Noble Houses — it's a matter of cultural prestige, nothing more._

 _Leuteris Makarios — Oh, and, yes, this is Merope Gaunt's not-Voldemort son's name. The_ Leut _is pronounced mostly like "left". Because Greek._

* * *

 _I did have a ramble here about how Charissa being perfectly coolsies with Lupin being a werewolf — and then a further bit saying Charissa being a blood purist would make absolutely no sense, disagreeing with a review I got a while ago — but these notes are already getting long enough. In summary, Charissa loved her mother and Dora, a muggleborn and a halfblood respectively, long before she'd heard blood should matter (and is obviously a halfblood herself on top of that); she knew her Uncle Remus long before she'd heard werewolves should be feared and reviled. Given her personal circumstances, her opinions as they are are more emotionally consistent._

 _Until next time,  
_ _~Wings_


	11. Second Year — The Duelling Club

_October 3rd, 1992_

* * *

'I'm not entirely sure I would want to do anything.'

Charissa just shrugged at that. A few hours ago, the student clubs and organisations had posted their usual start-of-term recruitment announcements on the common room notice board. She and Hermione had been in one of the potions labs at the time — Hermione was being a bit more obsessive than usual about putting together her apology gift for Uncle Remus, despite Charissa's insistence it wasn't really necessary — so this was their first opportunity to look at it. Hermione had already said more than once that she didn't think she'd be joining any, as focused on her schoolwork as she was. Charissa wasn't nearly so sure. She would be shocked if Hermione didn't eventually join one of the academic clubs, or maybe one of the more political organisations in a couple years. She knew there was a spellcrafting club Hermione would probably be interested in, and she knew from Mum there was a somewhat infamous social justice group that met on years they could find enough members to formally organise — somewhat infamous, because the members were often disproportionately muggleborns.

Of course, due to the particulars of the contract Hogwarts made with the Ministry centuries ago, the student population was already disproportionately muggleborn. So it _was_ sort of a sample bias in the first place.

She hadn't really bothered arguing with Hermione too much, though, just enough to get her to agree to actually check the board when they got back to the common room. If Charissa had been too pushy about insisting Hermione _would_ find something she would be interested in, that would likely just make Hermione annoyed when she found she'd been right. In which case, she'd probably refuse to join whatever she found out of pride, or just be a bit snitty with Charissa for the next week or so, or both. Neither of which Charissa really wanted to deal with.

Charissa knew exactly which club she'd be joining herself. She was only even checking so she could be sure of when they'd be meeting.

After another moment of waiting, the small group of upper-years crowding the board shuffled off, and she lead Hermione over. She ignored most of the placards, the flash of bright titles and flicker of animated drawings of varying clumsiness, searching out one specifically. Before too long, she spotted it. It didn't actually have a title at all, but the club it advertised was obvious — much of the space was taken up with a smoothly animated drawing of two plain black silhouettes energetically duelling. Below was the information she was looking for. Weekly Saturday evening meetings in one of the larger halls down on the ground floor, which she knew from Mum was specifically warded for the purpose, starting next week. Auditions for the Hogwarts duelling teams were at the end of the month, but she wouldn't bother — she sincerely doubted she would be anywhere _near_ good enough for even the junior division until at least fourth year. Apparently there was also an introductory meeting for second-years, or upper-years who hadn't been interested when they'd been second-years, in the same room on—

Charissa jumped, reached into her robes for her wand. A quick _tempus_ , and she was immediately cursing in her head. She dashed across to the stairs up to the dormitories, nearly running into a fourth-year girl on the way, sprinting over to her room. As quickly as she could, she shucked off the inconveniently billowy Hogwarts robes, changing instead into trousers and a shirt far easier to move around in. A quick check in her trunk later and she slipped her wand into the wrist holster Mum had gotten her for Christmas — a gift which had been immediately followed by much teasing from Dad and her uncles, though she knew for a fact Alice had gotten Neville an identical one. She tumbled down the stairs, even as she worked at fastening the thin leather straps around her arm. Just a few steps from reentering the common room, she nearly crashed into a confused-looking Hermione.

For a second, she wondered if she'd just moved that fast, or if Hermione had been so distracted with reading the placards she'd only noticed just now that Charissa had even left.

Hermione glanced over the clothes she'd changed into for a second, her hand still pulling at the straps at her forearm — which, since the holster was enchanted to be invisible to everyone else, she guessed might look a little weird — for a second before saying, 'What are you in such a rush for?'

'Duelling club orientation. Ten minutes.' At least, it had been in ten minutes back when she'd checked at the notice board. It couldn't have taken her more than a minute or two to get ready, but she still doubted she'd be able to get all the way to the proper hall on the ground floor before the meeting started. Hogwarts was sort of ridiculously large for how many people were here, after all. With nothing further, she darted past Hermione, heading for the door out into the rest of the castle.

Hermione shouted at her back, 'Did you want me to come with?'

'No,' she yelled over her shoulder, 'that's fine!' Hermione had less than zero interest in duelling as it was. She doubted Hermione would have even asked if she weren't unsure if this was one of those obligations friends had to each other. To be completely honest, she wouldn't be entirely surprised if Hermione tried to drag her into some other thing at some point — if not this year, a later one. But she also knew Hermione would probably let her off the hook if it was something she would really hate. So it was only fair.

Charissa managed to make it all the way down to the ground floor without running into any staff or prefects or anyone. Which, since she had been charging along hallways and down stairs at roughly a full sprint, she guessed was fortunate. When she did get to the ground floor, moving around toward the back of the castle, she let herself slow to a brisk walk, hands planted on her hips, desperately trying to return her breathing to normal as soon as possible. Over the summer, when she'd mentioned that she'd most likely be joining the duelling club this year, Mum had warned her that physical conditioning was just as important as magical to do it properly, so she'd tried to force herself to do a little running. She hadn't managed a lot, but she still felt comfortable thinking what little she'd done was the only reason she hadn't passed out at some point on the way down.

She turned into the proper hallway, and was totally unsurprised to see Professor Flitwick standing to the side of the wide double doors, greeting the last couple stragglers to get here before herself. He was the faculty adviser for the club, and also the coach of the team at the centre of it — he'd actually been a member of both when he'd been a student here — so him being here for this introductory meeting was not at all unexpected. What was a bit unexpected was the notepad he was holding, all the students writing something on it before walking into the hall. She wandered over, her breathing entirely forced back to normal even as the last of the stragglers gave back the notepad and turned inside.

'Ah, Miss Potter,' Flitwick said, a grin on face and voice. 'I thought I'd be seeing you here. You do seem to be taking after your mother quite a bit, after all.'

She just shrugged — that was more true in some ways and less true in others. Probably more true than not. 'What's the notepad for, Professor?'

He handed over the notepad, self-inking quill splayed atop it. 'Just answer both questions. You'll see why in a few minutes.'

The two questions written on the top page in a flowing script were simple enough, just her name, house and year. She wrote down her information, then watched with a sudden flash of curiosity as her much less pretty-looking scribbles sunk into the page and disappeared. A glance up at Professor Flitwick showed he was only smiling to himself, evidently not intending to explain the mystery any time soon. Shrugging to herself a little, she handed the notepad back, stepped into the hall.

This was one of the larger rooms in the castle, with a roughly similar footprint as the Great Hall, if not quite as tall. A few dozen students — mostly second-years, she saw at a glance, but a number of older students too — were gathered along one wall, sitting together in clumps across tiered benches. Most were still wearing their school uniforms, but she did notice a few people had had the same thought she'd had, changed into things easier to move around in. In the center of the hall was a large, pentagonal platform, almost identical to the warded circle Mum had made at home when Charissa had been so young she couldn't remember it not being there. Gathered in the pentagon were seven older students, whom she instantly knew were on the duelling team, talking lowly with each other. She knew they were on the duelling team because they all happened to be wearing the uniform Charissa recognised from the dozens of pictures Mum and Aunt Alice had from their own time on the team — she was pretty sure the uniform hadn't really changed in two centuries or so, the same loose trousers and shirt in deep black, accented with shimmering silver.

As she drifted over toward the benches, she first saw Draco expectantly watching her, but then noticed Neville waving her over, so she made for him, dropping to a seat at his side. 'Cutting it a little close, Charissa. Almost didn't think you would make it.'

'I was in the potions lab with Hermione, working on a project. I didn't even know this was happening today until—' She cast another quick _tempus_. Wow, really? She wouldn't think getting down here that fast would have been possible. '—thirteen minutes ago.'

Susan leaned around Neville, a smile twitching a little at her lips. 'What have you two been spending all day in there for, anyway?'

Charissa blinked at that. 'What?'

'Everyone's noticed you two are always in there recently. Half the girls in Gryffindor seem to think you're trying to brew a love potion. The other half assume, since you're Ravenclaws, that can't possibly be it — but whether they mean love potions wouldn't be very Ravenclaw-ish or if it simply wouldn't take you this long, no one's really said.'

An objection came to that immediately, quick and hard enough Charissa couldn't stop herself from saying it. 'They realise we're _twelve_ , right? Well, I'm twelve; Hermione's thirteen. But still, what possible use could we have for love potions?'

'I don't think you really understand the odd imagination of Gryffindor girls.'

Neville turned more toward Susan and, though Charissa couldn't see from this angle, she was positive he was grinning at her. 'Aren't _you_ a Gryffindor girl?'

'How do you think I know?'

Charissa had already lost track of the subtext by now. But that was perfectly fine — she had a feeling she didn't really want to know.

* * *

 _November 14th, 1992_

* * *

It was during the challenges at the end of the evening that something very stupid happened.

Duelling club meetings followed a rather regular pattern. At the beginning of the evening, someone from the duelling team — usually Phoibe Ingham, who was Captain at the moment — would get the meeting started, give announcements or answer questions should there be any of either. The larger club was then split up into smaller groups based on a combination of age and skill, each matched up with a member from the team. Not the same one every time, though; they rotated by some schedule Charissa hadn't been paying enough attention to to figure out. In their little groups, they'd be taught or practise spells and techniques appropriate for their skill level. In theory, anyway — she and Neville had been practising with Mum and Alice over the summer, so they were a bit ahead of the others in their year, some of the third-, and maybe even a couple fourth-years. Having Aurors for parents was sort of cheating, though.

Then, everyone had a casual little duel or two, part of a long, ongoing tournament the whole club was doing. She didn't understand _exactly_ how it worked, how everyone was being matched up with each other. From what little one of the boys on the duelling team had explained when she'd asked, it was built on something of a point system. Everyone had a certain number of points, each little practice duel they won adding points, each they lost subtracting. Exactly how _many_ points were won or lost apparently depended on the scores of both duellists. If someone with more points beat someone with less, their score wouldn't go up as much as the winner would if it were the other way around. The larger the point spread, the less a higher-scored duellist would get for winning, but the _more_ their lower-scored opponent would.

The whole thing reminded her of the career ranking system professional duellists used, but she didn't know enough about either to know if it were identical or not.

Before every meeting, the points as they stood that day for everyone in the club were hung at the door on a long roll of parchment. Looking over the list week to week, Charissa noticed a few interesting things. For one, students of the same year were almost always together, but not necessarily — there was a significant amount of back and forth at the boundaries from one year to another, and an occasional outlier here or there. Within their year, the girls usually rated higher than the boys, the trend loosening until sixth year, where it was mostly even again. Not surprising — girls matured earlier than boys both physically and magically. Also, the top students in each year were usually, but not always, Slytherins. Of the six years represented, the highest student in four of them were Slytherins, one was a Gryffindor, and one was a Ravenclaw.

In her own year, she'd noticed that Susan and Draco were right at the top, and over the last couple weeks had started edging out the lower third-years. They weren't quite the highest-scored second-years, though — that distinction belonged to Neville and herself, she slightly above him. The two of them had already passed over half of the third-years. They were actually doing well enough they'd been switched to a different practice group starting last week, filled with mostly third- and fourth-years.

It wasn't _easy_ fighting third- and fourth-years, not at all. They knew significantly more different spells than she and Neville did, and the spells they _did_ share were far more powerful when the older students cast them. Of course, the only spells they were allowed to use were simple harmless jinxes and hexes anyway. Though some of the duels between upper-years actually got rather impressive to watch, most of the younger kids weren't nearly good enough to do most of that. Neville and Charissa did have something of an advantage, but it wasn't one they would have had if Mum and Alice hadn't been teaching them.

There were, essentially, two major divisions in duelling styles. Mum and Alice had told the both of them that, especially considering their young age and thus lesser raw magical strength, only one of them was really open to them — it happened to be the way Aurors usually fought anyway, so that was convenient. The basic, underriding principle was simply to _never stop moving_. Throw off whatever spells may or may not be helpful, pause to put up a shield if an area-effect spell was incoming — not that they were powerful enough to either cast or shield from those at the moment anyway — but _never stop moving_. It doesn't matter how powerful or useful a hex or curse is, after all, if it doesn't hit its target. The second type was more stationary, the two duellists putting up defenses as powerful as they could make them, then throwing spells back and forth until one or the other is defeated. It could get more complicated than that sounded, but that was the basic idea. It required a certain amount of power to pull that kind of thing off, which Neville and Charissa simply didn't have yet. It was also the standard method traditionally used by most formal duellists, even some professionals, as well as almost everyone in this club.

Charissa liked imagining the gleeful look Alice would have on her face calling them all idiots.

These sort of shielding charms, which most of the third-years and all the fourth-years were more or less capable of, had one very major downside: the castor had to remain stationary to use them. If they moved even two steps, their defenses would collapse, and they'd have to recast them. Since the two of them didn't have the power necessary to defeat such shield charms directly, all they had to do was find some way to make them move, then disarm them in that instant of disoriented vulnerability. It wasn't _easy_ — especially since the better duellists had figured out what they were doing and were coming up with ways to directly fight it — but it wasn't impossible either. Charissa didn't think either she or Neville had lost more than once or twice.

At the end of the meetings, the entire club would gather together again, and any club member would have the opportunity to directly challenge any other club member. The reasons, she'd decided, weren't always the same. Sometimes, it seemed friends did it just for fun. Other times, she suspected the two involved were working off some kind of grudge with each other — by how a few pairs challenged each other almost every week, she figured there were a few rivalries within the club. Other times, it was obviously a calculated decision. Since their practice groups were all people with consecutive scores, someone defeating someone in their own group, as the duels everyone did every week always were, wouldn't get them nearly as many points as someone scored significantly higher. It also wasn't as much of a risk, since losing to someone scored significantly higher didn't have as high a point penalty. It was pretty clever, but Charissa didn't think she'd be doing it herself until next year — she was pretty sure she was going to start plateauing right around now anyway.

So, it was a bit of a surprise to her when, during the challenges at the end of the evening, a fourth-year boy stood up and said, 'I challenge Neville Longbottom.'

Ignoring the confused muttering around them, Charissa glanced over at Neville next to her. He looked just as baffled as she was, returning her look with one unsure and maybe a bit worried. Susan just looked furious.

Ingham gave the boy a long, steady look, before saying, 'Caelestis Gaunt challenges Neville Longbottom.' There was the slightest hint of disapproval on her voice.

Well. A Gaunt. That was just great. As if the twins hadn't already been giving Jasmine enough trouble. It was starting to look like she'd have to have words with that family. Maybe she could ask Selwyn to try talking to them first? They were first cousins, after all, far closer than she was, and the Ravenclaw of the family was nice enough...

But wait a— 'Why?' Neville said, loud enough for the whole room to hear him. Which was a very good question, just what she'd been thinking. She couldn't think of a good reason to target Neville at all. Gaunt was actually one of the higher-ranked fourth-years — not quite the top, but not far from it either — so she couldn't think he had anything to gain from it.

Gaunt turned to give Neville a haughty sort of look. She'd heard a thousand times that British nobility came in three basic physical types — black, red, and white. Black referred to any of the several families with black hair, pale skin, and pointy faces. The House of Black was funnily enough a black family, along with Ingham, roughly half of the Longbottoms, Selwyn, and plenty more. Charissa was a good example with the exception of her eyes, Neville pretty close too — though his mother was from a red family, and he'd inherited a bit from her. Caelestis Gaunt was almost a perfect example. Black hair, dark eyes, sharply contrasting with skin so pale he almost looked unhealthy, his face the sharp sort of thing that took to disdain with natural ease. Which she guessed wasn't surprising — his immediate ancestry included members of Houses Gaunt, Monroe, Ingham, and Black, which were all black families.

But no matter what he looked like, how much his obvious noble heritage might be ingrained into their cultural consciousness, it didn't change the fact that he was only fourteen. He might be _trying_ to intimidate Neville with the weight of his gaze alone, but it wasn't really working too well. His voice flat and apathetic, he said, 'You're growing far too cocky for a second-year 'Puff. Someone has to put you in your place.'

Charissa immediately felt herself frown at that. That was a _terrible_ reason. No matter which way the duel went, Gaunt would never come out ahead. If Gaunt won easily, most would only see him as needlessly cruel, and insecure in his own abilities — why else would it _matter_ how well a second-year was doing? If Gaunt won, but _not_ easily, he'd still have given the above impression, but with an additional strike against his reputation as a decent duellist. If _Neville_ won, no matter how hard-earned the victory, Gaunt would be absolutely _humiliated_. There wasn't even a justifiable reason as far as their scores went either — Gaunt was far enough above Neville Charissa wasn't sure he'd get any points at all. This was ridiculous. There were _no_ possible outcomes where Gaunt won, and _every_ possible outcome had legitimate, negative consequences. Whatever personal pleasure a sufficiently sadistic person might have gotten out of thrashing a second-year couldn't ever be worth this much risk.

She thought Slytherins were supposed to be _smart_.

Neville seemed to consider that for a moment, then just shrugged to himself a little, got to his feet. As he moved toward the warded space, Charissa felt an odd, quivering sensation she could never put words too. It didn't help that it wasn't exactly a _physical_ sensation — it was instead a feeling in her own magic, which was difficult enough to describe to begin with. Even if she couldn't describe it, was somewhat confused by the sensation every time she felt it, she knew immediately what it meant. Augí was here. Hardly a second later, she felt a warm pressure against her leg, and a glance down revealed the familiar ball of whiteness rubbing against her trousers. As though she weren't at all surprised by him randomly showing up — and, really, she wasn't _that_ surprised — she bent over, picked him up, and settled him on her lap, turned forward so he could watch the duel. She suspected that was why he'd come in the first place.

Not that she was entirely sure how Augí had known what was about to happen anyway. Or even how well Augí understood the concept of a duel. Maybe the first was part of how Charissa would always know where he was, if she thought to check, though not much of what was going on around him — maybe Augí just got more from her when he did the same thing. And she did know he _could_ do the same thing, since he'd displaced himself to wherever she happened to be more times than she could count. And for the second, she was fully aware he was much more intelligent than a normal cat would be, and growing smarter by the day. Part of that was just because he was an Iya — even a tiny bit of magic in their blood made most animals at least a little more intelligent than a mundane breed — but also because of the familiar bond she knew they were forming. Not that she was entirely sure how or why it worked that way anyway. She only even knew because she'd read about it somewhere.

Well, technically Hermione had read it somewhere and told her, but that wasn't the—

She started back to the moment when she felt the crackle of the wards around the duelling circle snapping into place. Not a sound, exactly, but she definitely noticed it. Those wards, she knew, would block most any spells the duellists cast at one another from leaving the pentagon inscribed on the floor. _Most_ any — there were exceptions, of course, but those particular spells were almost always explicitly against the rules, and she doubted either Gaunt or Neville could cast any of them anyway. Professor Flitwick lifted his wand from where he'd touched it to the circle, nodded to Ingham. She recited the familiar start-of-duel script, just a couple short sentences specifying the rules. Neville and Gaunt bowed to each other — Charissa had to smirk a little at the clearly different levels of respect they were showing. Gaunt hardly even dipped his head. On the other hand, Neville, as he always did, bent nearly double in the perfectly formal gesture his father had taught him years ago for proper society events, far enough he had to slide a foot out a bit to the side for balance, his arms even sweeping back and everything, the whole thing all smooth and graceful from much practice.

Not for the first time, Charissa thought to herself that Neville was likely going to start being really popular with the other girls pretty soon. And probably some of the boys, too.

Seconds later, both wands were drawn, and Ingham, with the slightest twinge of reluctance on her voice, called the beginning to the duel. Instantly, Gaunt's wand was twitching, and sent a crimson blast of light at Neville with a growled, ' _Stupeat_.' Charissa winced even as he said the incantation, having learned from experience the simple blocking spell both she and Neville were pretty good at wasn't hardly powerful enough to block a properly-cast stunning hex. But she needn't have worried — Neville obviously knew that too. Instead of even trying to block it, he simply twisted to the side, snapping off a nearly transparent greenish spell back at Gaunt even as the hex passed his shoulder. Charissa hadn't managed to hear the muttered incantation, but she was pretty sure that was a simple dancing jinx. Which was rather clever of Neville, actually — Gaunt was one of those hide-behind-shielding duellists and, on the off chance the jinx hit him, he'd be moving too much to shield himself properly until he could perform the counterjinx, giving Neville an opportunity to disarm him.

Clever, but not clever enough. Gaunt intercepted the jinx with the same simple blocking spell Charissa was so familiar with and, with a shouted incantation and a flourish of his wand, was suddenly enshrouded in a soft, hemispherical halo of barely visible blue shimmering. Gaunt stared Neville down with a haughty sort of sneer. Neville just sighed with a slight grimace of annoyance.

From that moment on, the duel was incredibly one-sided, Neville simply dodging hex after jinx after hex, dancing around Gaunt, the spells flashing again and again against the duelling wards surrounding them. He would return fire with a simple jinx every once in a while, though nothing even nearly powerful enough to break or penetrate Gaunt's shimmering barrier. But, of course, that wasn't the point. When a spell was intercepted by such a barrier, there was a brief flare of brighter blue-white light — she was pretty sure Neville was trying to time those flashes for the exact moment Gaunt was firing to make himself harder to see, and thus harder to hit. A minute or two went by, Neville dodging every single spell Gaunt tried to hit him with, but not hitting him with anything substantial in return.

Gradually, Gaunt started to get annoyed, the sneer on his face slowly shifting to a snarl. He dropped a few spells with wider areas of effect, though he obviously didn't know very many — even for a fourth-year, most of those required enough power they were out of reach. One of those attempts probably _would_ have taken Neville out, if he hadn't had so much practice fighting Charissa. With a barked incantation and a tight, angry flourish, Gaunt filled the entirety of the circle with a roaring torrent of flame. But Neville had seen the very familiar magic coming, and hastily cast a flame-freezing charm over himself, protecting him from Gaunt's assault until he banished the fire with a growl of frustration.

It was entirely possible Charissa liked fire spells, and she seemed to be somewhat unusually good at them. She'd burned Neville enough times during their practice duels over the summer Aunt Alice had specifically taught Neville that charm just to negate her advantage.

To an increasing muttering of disapproval from the audience around her, Gaunt started using hexes intended less to simply incapacitate Neville, and more to _hurt_. The nastier stinging and bludgeoning hexes mostly, though Charissa also noticed a retching hex and a flinging jinx. But still, Neville danced out of the way of every single charm coming his way. He did eventually take a small hit, wincing in an evident flash of pain. Though she couldn't perform the spell herself, she knew from the incantation and the way Gaunt's wand had moved that that had been a minor cutting charm — which were of somewhat dubious permissibility in duels like these, potentially dangerous enough she was sure Flitwick would be giving Gaunt a talking-to later. It wasn't until a few seconds later that Charissa noticed only the slightest reddening of Neville's sleeve just below his shoulder, so she figured he couldn't have been hit too bad.

A few seconds after that, Gaunt sent another whitish bludgeoning hex at Neville who, a determined scowl on his face, didn't even try to step out of the way, pointing his wand toward the ground instead. He shifted slightly to the side, allowing the spell to strike at his left shoulder, jerking him half around with a loud snapping noise. Through gritted teeth, Neville groaned, ' _Poliātur_ ,' swinging his downward-hanging wand hand in a wide motion, forward and up. Gaunt's feet started sliding in place. First just a little, but then a little further as he overcorrected, then further again. A simple stinging jinx splashed against his shielding gave him the slightest of pushes, sending him suddenly slipping to the floor. Charissa saw Neville's wand move in the familiar swirling flourish of a disarmament, and Gaunt's wand was yanked out of his hand, sent clattering to the stone some feet from him.

For a moment, there was nothing but shocked silence from the audience, Neville panting for breath, Gaunt still slowly sliding on the tiles charmed frictionless.

Then Gaunt was scrambling for his wand, which was still just barely inside the circle. For a moment he slipped uselessly against the tiles, but Neville's charm was slowly wearing off, and he started making gradual progress. But before he could even get close, Neville pushed his wand past the wards with the smallest brush of wind. And the duel was over.

Neville collapsed to his knees in obvious relief, swarmed a second later by ecstatic second- and third-years. But Charissa stayed where she was, sitting in the suddenly mostly-empty stands, stroking Augí in her lap, letting out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding. She then felt the peculiar sensation of something _outside_ penetrating her mind — she didn't panic, though, since she instantly recognised the source well enough. The foreign presence, Augí, was filled with a sense of deep amusement. Apparently, he found Neville's victory quite funny.

Then Charissa had the sudden feeling she was in two places at once. While still sitting here on the bench, aware of everything happening around her, she was also deep in a forest on a winter night. It didn't feel quite right, either — her vision was too sharp even in the obvious darkness, the smells were too varied and powerful. Even _she_ felt different, too long, too quick. After a moment of confusion, she realised Augí was sharing a memory with her. He'd never done that before, and she hadn't known it was possible, but she decided to pass that off for the moment. They were darting along the forest floor, so quickly Charissa could hardly decipher the features of their surroundings flicking past them. Something was chasing them, she didn't know what — something larger than they were, all growling and teeth and claws. They suddenly burst out of the tree cover, the slippery chill on their paws telling Charissa they were on frozen water instead of frozen ground. With deft use of claws, they kept mostly to the same pace, hearing their pursuer skitter much less gracefully across the new terrain, but still mostly keeping up.

Spotting something ahead of them Charissa couldn't quite make out, Augí suddenly radiated a sense of smug victory. With a couple well-placed steps, Augí angled their trajectory slightly to the side. A moment later, roots and branches were flicking by on all sides, trees reaching into the water frozen in place. Charissa clearly heard their pursuer slam into the living wall, clearly lacking the agility necessary to slip into one of the narrow paths through as Augí had. Their pursuer's howls of defeat noisy in their ears, Augí led them more calmly back toward home, feeling altogether pleased with himself.

When she was fully back in the present time and place, Charissa just smiled to herself. She didn't think the comparison quite appropriate, but she still thought it oddly adorable that Augí approved of Neville's victory against Gaunt so much. He was one of the few boys Augí could stand, so maybe she shouldn't be so surprised.

Even the realisation that, due to how many more points than Neville Gaunt had, Neville would have now significantly surpassed her on their little scoreboard couldn't wipe the grin from her face.

* * *

 _November 16th, 1992_

* * *

It came during breakfast, two mornings later.

' _CAELESTIS ARKTUROS GAUNT.'_ The Great Hall immediately fell silent, hushed by the familiar, deafening call of a Howler. Charissa didn't recognise the woman's voice, but it could only be Áine Gaunt — eldest daughter of Lord Gaunt, and mother of Caelestis and the twins. ' _I AM ABSOLUTELY ASTOUNDED BY THE UNBELIEVABLE THOUGHTLESSNESS YOU SHOWED SATURDAY NIGHT. IF YOU'RE GOING TO DO SOMETHING AS DREADFULLY IDIOTIC AS CHALLENGE A SECOND-YEAR HUFFLEPUFF TO A DUEL, THE VERY_ _ **LEAST**_ _YOU COULD DO IS WIN. EVEN THEN, I WOULD HAVE REASON ENOUGH TO BE FURIOUS. I CANNOT FATHOM WHAT YOU_ _ **POSSIBLY**_ _THOUGHT YOU COULD HAVE GAINED BY CHALLENGING YOUNG LONGBOTTOM, NO MATTER THE OUTCOME._

' _BUT EVEN WORSE, I HAD TO HEAR OF IT FROM MY FATHER, WHO WAS TOLD BY LADY FAWLEY, OF ALL PEOPLE. YOUR INCOMPETENCE AND BRAZEN SHORTSIGHTEDNESS — BEHAVIOUR I WOULD MORE EXPECT FROM SOME FOOL GRYFFINDOR THAN ANY SON OF MINE — HAS APPARENTLY BEEN THE JOKE OF THE DAY AMONG THE LIGHT HOUSES. AND, OF ALL PEOPLE, TO TARGET THE BROTHER OF THE HEIR TO HOUSE LONGBOTTOM, ONE OF THE_ _ **VERY FEW**_ _HOUSES OUTSIDE THE ALLIANCE OUR OWN IS EVEN_ _ **CLOSE**_ _TO FRIENDLY WITH! I HONESTLY DOUBT YOU COULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING MORE FOOLISH IF YOU HAD_ _ **TRIED**_ _! YOU SHOULD CONSIDER YOURSELF UNACCOUNTABLY FORTUNATE LADY AUGUSTA HAS DECIDED NOT TO TAKE OFFENSE, AS MY FATHER WOULD HAVE BEEN LEFT NO CHOICE BUT TO PUBLICLY CENSURE YOU IF SHE HAD._

' _MY FATHER HAS ALREADY EXPRESSED SERIOUS DOUBTS YOU WILL EVER MATURE INTO A SUITABLE HEIR FOR THE TITLE OF HOUSE GAUNT, AND SATURDAY'S FOOLISHNESS HAS NOT HELPED YOUR CASE. I'M WARNING YOU RIGHT NOW, IF YOU DO NOT WANT THE TITLE TO INSTEAD PASS TO ALEX OR HESPER, START DEMONSTRATING YOU CAN ACTUALLY USE YOUR BRAIN — OR, I DARESAY, THAT YOU EVEN HAVE A FUNCTIONAL ONE AT ALL.'_ With the usual cacophonous burst of flame, the the magic shredded itself into nonexistence, and Gaunt's devastating public humiliation had ended.

Turning back to her meal, Charissa couldn't help smirking to herself a little.

* * *

 _April 10th, 1993_

* * *

It was all Charissa could do just to keep her voice level, to suppress the wavering growl of fury deep within her, begging to be let out. But she managed it. 'I challenge Draco Malfoy.'

Draco was perfectly in view from where she was standing, so she could see the look of surprise flash across his face. Pick a reason for that, really. Draco was one of the top duellists in their year — certainly above any other boy who didn't happen to have two decorated Aurors for parents — but he was still far enough below her the increase to her score she would get for winning wasn't really worth it. But, of course, this wasn't about their stupid little scoreboard. It was possible he knew her well enough to see she was suppressing some anger at the moment, but she wasn't entirely sure. He obviously didn't know her as well as he thought he did anyway. That was the whole problem.

From before them, Ingham said, 'Charissa Potter challenges Draco Malfoy.' The older girl simply turned to Draco, staring at him with an eyebrow raised, silently waiting for his response.

After a short moment, probably spent considering exactly what Charissa's motivation for challenging him could be, he nodded. 'I accept.' Charissa wasn't sure how many people would notice the subtle reluctance on his voice. She knew he'd been avoiding duelling her as much as he could. Or anyone else here he happened to be more than a distant relation with, actually, though she was pretty sure she was the closest of his cousins here anyway. She figured Aunt Narcissa had probably managed to instill in him some degree of the famous Black family loyalty — or infamous, depending on who was asked — making him somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of hexing someone he was related to.

Not that he had anything to worry about. Charissa wasn't planning on being hexed. This should only take a couple spells.

A moment later, they were standing in the circle, the wards crackling into existence with a touch of Flitwick's wand, Ingham calling the usual rules. And speaking of rules, Charissa was pretty sure she would be fine — what she was planning was a bit much, but it wouldn't leave him _permanently_ harmed, after all. When she was supposed to be bowing, Charissa didn't even twitch. Draco gave her something of a wary look at that. She thought he might be slowly realising he was about to be in trouble. Ingham was frowning at her ever so slightly, but she still called the start of the duel.

Draco didn't waste any time, starting the flourish for a disarmament before Ingham had even finished her sentence. Charissa watched his wrist, turned her own in the proper direction to counteract the twisting pull on her wand. If he was going to get right into it, then she guessed there was no point in wasting time, no matter how fun it might have been just to mess with him. Her wand fluttering in her fingers, Charissa hissed, _Ignem 'circueundum_.' Charissa wavered only slightly as the spell left her, one of the more powerful she could presently cast.

Somewhere in the back of her head, where she wasn't so involved with her own spellcasting, even she was impressed. The spell left her wand as a momentary flash of yellow light, then manifested around where Draco stood as several angled bands of flickering red-orange flame, each as wide around as Charissa was, together letting out an angry hiss so loud it was nearly deafening, such heat she was uncomfortably warm even from here. They didn't move in to harm him, simply floated in the air, holding him trapped in place. He gazed at her through the heat haze, his narrow face just on the edge of panicked. He definitely realised he was in trouble now. He snapped off a bludgeoning hex at her, but something happened to his spell as it crossed the fire. The naturally whitish light shifted to an odd, stuttering yellow.

Whatever happened to it had also slowed its travel across the air, so it was a simple matter for Charissa to step out of the way. Before Draco could do anything else, Charissa again pointed her wand — not at Draco, but at her prison of flame surrounding him. ' _Inverte._ ' In an instant, the air was filled with the smell of burning silk, charred hair and flesh following a moment later, every ear ringing with the sound of Draco screaming.

Charissa watched impassively as the flame-shrouded figure flailed in agony, until conjured water from Ingham and a stunning spell from Flitwick put him out of his misery.

* * *

In the middle of the hallway, Charissa stopped at the call of her name. Behind her, stalking down the corridor in evident fury, was Phoibe Ingham. Charissa wasn't entirely surprised the seventh-year was annoyed with her. She had just set her cousin on fire in a practice duel, injuring him badly enough he was currently in the Hospital Wing. Charissa was actually on her way to the Headmaster's office right now, where she suspected she'd be confronted on her behaviour by both Professors Flitwick and Vector. The looks she'd been getting as the club meeting dispersed had been peculiar to say the least.

But, honestly, she didn't care. He wasn't permanently hurt, she hadn't broken any rules. They could shove their disapproval.

Ingham stopped in front of her, arms crossed and eyes narrowed. 'Give me one reason I shouldn't be expelling you from the duelling club right now.'

Oh. She hadn't thought of that. That would be annoying. But, fortunately, she had a decent defence. 'I didn't break any rules. _Ignem circueundum_ isn't a banned spell — hardly ever used, but mostly because for mages older than the two of us it'd be easy to shield against or just vanish. I didn't do enough damage for him to be seriously injured, and the usual healing spells will work on him just fine. He'll be as good as new by tomorrow morning.'

For long seconds, all Ingham did was stare down silently, a finger slowly tapping at her upper arm. But there wasn't a legitimate rebuttal for that — Charissa was entirely correct. If Charissa were to be expelled from the club, it wouldn't be because she'd broken a rule. 'That may be so,' Ingham finally said, her voice low and steady, 'but I'm still not at all pleased. Now, Potter, I honestly don't care what happened between the two of you outside our hall — and don't think I didn't notice how furious you are at him. It's really none of my business. But when you bring it into our hall, it becomes my business. I can't have people using our circle to settle whatever outside feuds they have.'

Ingham paused for a moment, so Charissa guessed she was supposed to respond to that somehow. 'I understand.'

'If you do something like this again, I might have to take action — and if I don't, Flitwick will. And he's not likely to be as soft as I am.' Charissa barely stopped herself from laughing at the thought of Ingham as _soft_. There was a reason she was at the top of the school's duelling team. 'Are we clear?'

She nodded. 'Yes, Captain. Perfectly.'

With her own nod, Ingham said, 'Alright then. Because I'd hate to have to kick you out. You're extraordinarily good for a second-year. I can't really speak for whoever will be in charge a couple years from now, but if you're not on the team by fifth year I'd be shocked.'

The only response Charissa could think of was to grin at her.

* * *

[the student population was already disproportionately muggleborn] _— Dunno if I've ever mentioned this, but in my headcanon Hogwarts is something of a prestige school. It's not the only school of magic in Britain, just the most highly-regarded. As such, the students are, for the most part, the nobility and the wealthy. Or the children of sufficiently highly-ranked Ministry employees — like the Weasleys, though their mother was also born into a Noble House — but those are usually one or the other anyway. But, when Hogwarts and the infant Ministry first joined forces, so to speak, all those centuries ago, they made a deal that Hogwarts would take responsibility for all the muggleborns in the country who couldn't otherwise make their own arrangements. So, virtually all British muggleborns also attend Hogwarts. And, yes, this is still a bit controversial with some pureblooded noble families._

Phoibe _— This is just Phoebe, with the spelling corrected. It's Φοιβη in the original Greek, who knows why an incorrectly transliterated version is so dominant. It was not uncommon for Latin-speakers in the ancient world to get iota and epsilon mixed up in Greek words, so maybe that has something to do with it._

 _stupeat — subjunctive form of Latin verb meaning "to be stunned/dazed"; same verb canon "stupefy" is ultimately from, same spell._

 _poliātur — passive subjunctive of Latin verb meaning "to polish, smooth"_

Arkturos _— The same as Arcturus, just with original Greek orthography (from Αρκτούρος) instead of Latin._

 _ignem circueundum — Basically, means "encircling fire." Nerds might notice this is a noun in the accusative, the object of a dropped verb. And, yes, I put the quotation mark where I meant to. Charissa cheated and cast the spell half-silently, which is a thing she can do selectively at this point, mostly with fire magic._


	12. Second Year — Openings

_September 26th, 1992_

* * *

Hermione was startled out of her concentration by the unmistakable sound of someone sitting down across from her.

She was at her usual table in the back corner of the library, sitting in her usual chair. The more consistent she could make her surroundings when she absorbed things, the easier the knowledge was to find later. Charissa was out of the castle at the moment, so she'd been sitting here alone. (She hadn't asked, but she assumed Charissa was out with her mother — it still annoyed her that magical families could do that.) It had taken her some time to properly focus on her reading as it was. She'd been so wrapped up in fury and guilt for a few days now, it'd just been so hard to concentrate. Her throat immediately started tightening, her fist unconsciously clenching, eyes tracking up to whoever had interrupted her hard-won focus, preparing to yell at them to—

Oh. It took hardly an instant for Hermione to recognise the tiny, wide-eyed, blonde-haired girl — one of Charissa's first-year hangers-on, the perpetually spacy-looking one, Luna Lovegood. Hermione wasn't entirely sure what she thought about her. She was very... Well, she was very strange. Not as noisy as the other first-years that seemed set on following her and Charissa around, so there was at least that. And definitely intelligent — Hermione had already noticed the girl could read and participate in the conversation around her at the same time, a level of multitasking she couldn't herself manage. At least not without messing up her recall. Hermione suspected she was significantly ahead of most of her year in magic theory, and might even know more than Hermione, honestly. But nearly half of everything she said made Hermione distinctly uncomfortable — alternating between aggravating flights of fancy and insights eerily personal. Honestly, Hermione thought she would be more comfortable if Luna just never talked ever.

Though, she guessed there was a little bit of a problem there, too. Much like Charissa, Luna had a habit of simply staring at people — though, unlike Charissa, her wide-eyed, observant expression wasn't even close to intimidating, almost even comical. She was weird, was the point.

Finished pulling a book from her bag onto the table — Hermione instantly recognised it as the first-year Transfiguration text — Luna glanced up to meet her eyes. 'Oh, hello, Hermione.' She sounded oddly surprised, as though she hadn't noticed Hermione at all on her walk over. But then, she sounded politely surprised to Hermione at least half the time, so that might not actually mean anything.

Hermione blinked at the other girl for a few seconds, before just shrugging it off as more peculiar, ah, Lovegoodness. 'Hello, Luna. Charissa's not here.' She wasn't entirely sure why she decided to say that.

'I know. She's talking to Lily about what everyone is doing to help Professor Lupin.' Luna cracked her book open, laying it down on the table — Hermione almost winced when she noticed the colourful doodling in the margins.

For a second Hermione was surprised Luna had referred to Charissa's mother by her first name. But, well, it was obvious Charissa and Luna had known each other before Hogwarts, and Lady Potter really didn't seem to like being called Lady Potter, so maybe that wasn't so strange. And then Hermione processed the rest of the sentence. 'Oh.' She hesitated a moment, absently playing at the corner of a page with two fingers. 'Erm, should I be doing something to help? It is sort of my fault...'

'It's Skeeter's fault.' Just for those three words, Luna's usual soft, drifting sort of tone was replaced by something flat and cold. But her voice was back to normal when she said, 'I think they have it all taken care of. Professor Lupin has far too many powerful friends for trying to defame him for no good reason to be a safe idea. At least since most of the werewolf laws have changed.'

She blinked at that. 'Werewolf laws?'

'Yes. Werewolves used to be considered creatures. They were reclassified as part-human beings in nineteen-sixty...' Luna made a vague, light frown, her face tipping upward, staring toward the ceiling in her peculiarly unfocused way. 'Sixty... Sixty... Some sixty... Sisisxsisisi—'

Hermione decided to ignore that. She had enough to be concerned about just with that bit of information. From both what she had read and what she had heard — mostly subtle comments here and there from Charissa's mother — she was not at all impressed with Britain's magical government. Much of what she'd learnt so far had dealt with muggleborns, for the obvious reasons. It wasn't all that long ago that muggleborns were treated as second-class citizens under the law, barred from a variety of careers, granted fewer rights and protections. Most of Europe had been much the same. While that was no longer the situation _legally_ , it was certainly no secret that more discreet discrimination was still widespread. Charissa's parents had been quite clear about that, when they'd made their offer over the summer, explaining just how much being under the protection of House Potter could conceivably help her.

Charissa's mother had hinted things were a bit better on the Continent. While the improvements here had been achieved through legislation, fiercely fought for by Professor Dumbledore and his allies, the majority of the pureblooded elite on the continent had been purged some decades ago now. The infamous Dark Lord Grindelwald had been infamously ruthless, and nothing if not thorough.

But, as she knew, the situation was even worse for creatures. Theoretically, any living thing with intelligence at or near human capabilities was supposed to be classified as a being. Certain rights and protections under the law came with that. Not as many as humans got, but still more than creatures did. Those classified as creatures were, in short, animals, though with magical traits that necessitated hiding them from non-magical view — so, obviously, they were not given the same protections. Centaurs and merpeople were legally considered creatures, something she knew was controversial to the right sort of people. And, apparently, werewolves had only been moved from one class to the other three decades ago.

The thought just made her feel even worse for Professor Lupin. She couldn't _imagine_ being shunted into an underclass of society — due to being a victim of a violent assault in childhood, of all things — that, until very recently, weren't even considered _people_.

Sometimes she wondered to herself if magical Britain wasn't a third-world country. Perhaps even compared to other magical nations.

But now Luna was staring at her again. She thought the girl might have said something to her, but she hadn't been paying attention. She should probably say something. 'I, er, didn't know that.' Ergh, wow. What was it about Luna that always made her feel like an idiot talking to her? Even when the quirky girl was just making something up — especially when she was just making something up!

'Speaking of things you don't know—' Hermione tried not to flinch at that. '—you shouldn't be reading that book.'

Hermione glanced down at the book in front of her. She'd finished her homework for the week — and most of the next — so she'd been working through her supplemental reading list. Talking to Charissa's mother had intensified the nascent interest she'd already had in runic magic, so she'd decided to start researching the subject before she started going absolutely crazy holding back curiosity. She did that, sometimes. It was the third year text for the Ancient Runes class — at least, she thought it was. She'd asked one of the Ravenclaw prefects, found it in the library. 'I shouldn't?'

In that same, level, floaty voice, Luna said, 'No.'

'But, it's the third year text.' Even she thought that was a flimsy excuse. It wasn't a very _good_ textbook, but she'd thought that about virtually all of their class texts so far. She'd been starting to suspect for some time now Hogwarts might not be as good of a school as they liked to claim to be. In the privacy of her own head, of course — she doubted many would take kindly to the critical opinion of a thirteen-year-old muggleborn.

'Yes. It was written by Professor Babbling for the class. Without her lectures to go with it, you don't learn everything. And it's not presented very well. Not much more than a dictionary and grammar, really.'

Hermione glanced down at the page she was at, thinking to herself. That description really was accurate. In third year Runes class — and fourth year too, she suspected — they were essentially taught to read and write in the old Nordic runes. Not just the phonetic runic alphabet, which was still used enough in magical Britain Hermione had taken a couple hours to teach it to herself quick, but the logographic script created in the same time period specifically to craft enchantments. Symbols representing meaning, not just sound. At least, mostly meaning — there were runes solely or variably used for grammatical purposes only, sometimes a couple runes from the alphabet squeezed in for irregular inflectional endings. While there was apparently a little room for rule-bending, scripted enchantments generally had to be grammatically correct in the language the script was native to, so they had to learn a form of Old Norse too — though the previous professor had done it in Old English, Babbling preferred Norse. Half the textbook was mostly composed of rune after rune after rune, a short, dictionary-like entry providing the pronunciation, meaning, and sometimes a couple quick examples of how the rune was commonly used in magic. The other half was an analytical overview of Norse grammar. There was a little more to it, but not very much

It had already been niggling at the edge of her thoughts that this might be a completely useless way to try to learn the Nordic runic script — or, more particularly, exactly how it applied to the use of magic. Luna was only confirming her suspicion.

'I guess you have a better book in mind, then.' She hoped she didn't sound annoyed. At least, not annoyed with Luna herself. She was a bit frustrated with how much time she'd wasted flipping through this useless thing, no reason to offend Luna, not her fault.

But if she did sound annoyed, Luna didn't seem to notice. 'Oh, yes.'

Hermione waited a moment, but the girl just kept staring at her, smiling in her usual vague, inscrutable sort of way. 'Which one, exactly?'

'Oh!' the strange little girl said, her eyes lighting up, as though she'd just understood what Hermione had been getting at. 'Right. I'm sure the library has it. One second.' Luna reached into her bag and pulled out—

Hermione couldn't help staring at the little thing in Luna's hands. It was a dragon. A Swedish Short-Snout, she guessed, judging by the glimmering blue of the scales and the size of the wings compared to the rest of the body. But the thing was tiny — Luna's two hands cupped together could almost enclose the entire thing. Even newly hatched, no breed of dragon was that small. It almost looked alive, though. She noticed the slight movement of its chest from breath, the occasional tiny twitch in tail and wings. But it couldn't possibly be a real dragon. That would just be ridiculous.

Luna set the tiny thing, which appeared to be sleeping, on the table, gave it a little pat, then got to her feet and started wandering off. After a second of hesitation, staring at the diminutive creature Luna had left behind, she decided to follow, only catching up as Luna reached the particular section populated mostly with texts dealing with runic magic. Luna stepped up to the corner of one of the shelves, slipped her wand out of a pocket, and touched the tip to the shining wooden surface. 'Ailbhe Greengrass, _On Thought and Magic_.' A soft, golden light ran across the surface of the bookshelves, emanating from where Luna's wand touched and racing across every surface all the way up to the ceiling, all the way down to the opposite end of the hallway. Luna waited a moment, but nothing happened. She passed her wand to her opposite hand, then repeated her request, touching her wand to the opposite shelf.

This time, the glow was redirected halfway across, gathering into a single rectangle near the ceiling. Slowly, the sizable book was drawn off the shelf, cradled safely in an embrace of golden light. The light returned to Luna, the book gliding through the air toward her. Luna took the book with a bright, 'Thank you,' then turned to hand it to Hermione.

But Hermione was too busy staring at Luna to take it. After a few seconds of meeting her perpetually unfocused eyes in silence, Hermione finally found her voice again. 'How did you do that?'

Luna blinked at her — once, slowly. 'You ask the library for a book, and it'll give it to you. It wants to help people learn. Have to be at the right shelf, though. It only helps if the book can hear you.'

That was a peculiar way of putting it, but Hermione figured Luna was trying to say there was an enchantment on the bookshelves that would provide to anyone any book within range of the enchantment when prompted correctly. It wasn't a perfect system — she would have to know exactly which book she wanted, and which exact shelf it was on — but it was definitely better than awkwardly levitating books off shelves she couldn't reach, as she'd had to do a couple times.

At the thought, she involuntarily relived a memory from first year, when she'd knocked a couple books off the shelf trying to do exactly that, sending them thudding down on top of her. She took _On_ Þ _ought and Magic: An Introduction to_ _þ_ _e Graffic Arts_ from Luna with one hand, rubbing at the phantom pain on the top of her head with the other. At least Charissa hadn't been around when that had happened. That would have been embarrassing.

* * *

 _November 15th, 1992_

* * *

Charissa tapped her wand twice against the stone wall, crossed her arms behind her back, and settled in to wait.

It had been simple enough to convince Sorcha Selwyn to tell her where to find the Slytherin common room. The third-year had been there plenty of times, mostly visiting cousins, and had been perfectly willing to give the poorly-kept secret up. This section of wall didn't look that different from any other to her. Sorcha had said residents of the house and all prefects and professors could see on the wall the coat of arms of the long-dead Noble and Most Ancient House of Sylþeris — the House the Founder had been born to, the name changed to _Slytherin_ after centuries of linguistic drift — but anyone else had to count paces down the subterranean hallway if they wanted to visit. Apparently, tapping twice with her wand as she just did would alert those inside she was here, but Sorcha had warned her it might be a couple minutes before anyone bothered to open the door. If they did at all — apparently, some of the upper years had once decided they didn't want a Ravenclaw around at the moment, no matter that she was just visiting her cousin, and they'd just left Sorcha standing out there until she'd given up and gone back.

Thankfully, Charissa didn't have to wait too long. After hardly a minute, a section of the wall about two meters square simply vanished, as suddenly and smoothly as though it'd never been there to begin with. A warm, green-blue glow seeped into the hall, but all Charissa could see of the common room was an indistinct blur — a privacy charm of some kind, she assumed. She did see the boy standing just inside, arms crossed over his chest, just fine. The badge on his chest told her he was the sixth-year prefect, but she didn't recognise him. 'Can I help you, Miss Potter?' His voice when he asked was perfectly polite, but giving an ever-so-slight impression that he would really rather not help her if he could.

Putting the same faux-respectfulness on her own voice, she said, 'I was only hoping to meet with my cousins.'

The older boy considered that for a moment. 'Which ones?'

She supposed that was a legitimate question — she had a few cousins in Slytherin at the moment. 'The Gaunt twins. Are they in?'

He winced at that, and it took everything Charissa had not to smirk. She'd heard from a number of people — and, more recently and explicitly, Jasmine — that Hesper and Alexis had a tendency to make nearly everyone around them dreadfully uncomfortable. To be fair, bonded twins almost always did, but she still found it amusing how uncomfortable this sixth-year was just with the thought of a couple of first-years. 'Yeah, you might as well. Make a nuisance of yourself and permission will be retracted. Directly.'

Implying they'd force her to leave, either magically or physically. She just nodded though — that was much as she'd expected. The boy stepped out of the way, and she walked into the room.

Two things happened as she crossed the threshold. One, whatever charm was obscuring the common room dispersed, and she could suddenly see. She instantly decided she preferred her own common room, but it wasn't a terrible place. Most of the walls and floor were covered with dozens of tapestries and rugs and carpets in smooth greens and blacks, dozens of armchairs and couches and tables strewn about seemingly at random. Several fixtures of silvery metal were attached to the walls at regular intervals, enchanted lamps emitting a steady, orangish light. There were also two fireplaces, one to her left and the other to her right, but they were currently empty — she assumed because, though it was a bit cool, it wasn't quite cold enough to need the warmth. Almost the entire back wall across from where she stood looked to be glass, holding back a murky mass of blue-green she assumed was the lake. She hadn't thought she'd walked that far from the main body of the castle, but distances could get a bit inconsistent in magical structures, so she decided just to ignore that.

The second was a hissing voice, sounding almost unnervingly close to her left ear, slightly behind her, whispering only, ' _Welcome, Speaker_ ,' before stopping. Charissa tensed for a moment, physically restraining herself from jerking around to look for the source, before forcing herself to relax. Probably some enchantment, put there long ago to personally welcome any Parselmouth walking into the common room. Not that she'd be mentioning that to anyone. Mum had suggested long ago she do her best to keep the fact she was a Parselmouth a secret, and she was pretty sure she'd done well with that so far. As far as she knew, only Mum, Dad, her brothers, Dora, Remus, Sirius, Peter, Frank, Alice, Neville, and Gwyneira knew. Basically, the people who were around her enough keeping it from them would be more difficult than not — with how snakes liked to follow her around when she was in the forest near home it'd be almost impossible to hide it.

She'd thought at the time that hiding it was a rather peculiar thing to do, but by now she knew enough to understand why. Parseltongue didn't _actually_ have any connection to questionable magic at all — in fact, in the region of the world most agreed the talent originated in it's associated with healers — but enough people _think_ it did it was worth the effort to keep it a secret. Which was pretty easy to do, so long as she remembered not to talk to anything that even looked vaguely snake-like. Almost had an accident once, when she'd been lounging by the lake after exams last year with Hermione and Neville, but Hermione had blasted the poor thing away with a shriek before she could slip up.

Charissa shook the thought off. She wasn't here to look around, or stand in the middle of the room thinking to herself like a crazy person. After a moment of looking around the room, she spotted who she thought were probably the Gaunts. Two smaller figures, definitely first- or second-years, were sitting at a table by the lake wall, but she couldn't see too clearly from here. Not that she'd be able to see their faces too well if she were right next to them, anyway — one was nose-deep in a book, the other bent over the table, probably writing. Might as well check.

She was maybe a dozen paces away when one of them — a pale, black-haired boy, sitting sideways in an armchair so his feet were stuck over the side, book open just before his face — glanced up at her for a second. He then went right back to his book. The instant she got close enough for polite conversation, the other straightened, turning around to face her with a slightly crooked smile. 'Charissa Potter, right?'

For a second, Charissa was confused — the girl looked like so many other people she'd met it was disorienting, like her brain couldn't decide for an awkward second who this was, or if she even knew her at all. But with how inbred most of the Noble Houses were, she guessed that really shouldn't be surprising. They all looked pretty much the same. And by _they_ , she realised she was including herself. She consciously decided not to be surprised Alexis knew her name. They had met before, of course, but it had been years ago, and she didn't really remember. 'Yes. Alexis Gaunt?'

The girl nodded. 'We can honestly say we didn't expect you to come down for a visit.'

Charissa noticed that Alexis didn't bother introducing Hesper and, more interestingly, the conspicuously plural pronouns she used. For some reason no one quite understood, the partners in multiple births — twins, triplets, and so forth — were born with a peculiar mental connection to each other. While she gathered it wasn't exactly the same in every single case, it wasn't at all uncommon for one twin to know where the other was at all times, what they were doing, even thinking and feeling. In extreme cases, such people even had trouble conceptualising themselves as distinct personalities. This could often be severely unnerving for everyone around them, which likely had something to do with the once ubiquitous practice of immediately killing all but one of the children in the event of any multiple birth — once ubiquitous in Britain, anyway, certain other cultures didn't have the same stigma. She suspected that still happened all the time, but it wasn't exactly something people talked about. It was possible for twins to intentionally break that bond if they chose to, or for it to happen unintentionally through an argument or some trauma affecting one or both. As far as she knew, once the bond was broken, it was gone forever. The Patils had broken their bond early in first year, she knew — Padma had been so withdrawn the first weeks because she'd been recovering from the event. She was pretty sure the Weasleys were still bonded.

From what she'd heard of the Gaunts, they most certainly were. She'd also come to suspect, almost entirely from what Jasmine said complaining about them, that they were even one of those extreme cases.

But here she was thinking to herself like a crazy person again. Maybe she hadn't been getting enough sleep lately. She'd have to start enforcing an early bedtime for Hermione, so she wouldn't have to stay up so long. Even in her head, that sounded weird. 'There was something I had to talk to you about.'

Alexis cocked her head a little, an eyebrow raising. 'Oh?' Then her expression shifted, and she turned back to her parchment, scribbled down another line. Charissa had to suppress a shudder when she realised what was happening right in front of her. Hesper was reading from a book, a title she recognised as one containing descriptions of hundreds of simple charms. Alexis was writing down what she knew with a glance were incantations and wand movements, the script looking almost identical to the notebook Charissa herself still carried. Hesper was going through the charms, Alexis writing down the ones they thought were worthwhile, all without saying a single word aloud.

It took her a moment to shake off her disquiet, find her voice again. 'I needed to talk to you about Jasmine Palmer.'

Annoyance flickered across Alexis's face. 'She go complaining to you already?'

'She didn't ask me to intervene, if that's what you mean.' Not that Jasmine had known this was something Charissa could intervene in without too much trouble — she didn't quite understand how society operated yet. She also didn't know Charissa and the Gaunts happened to be...third cousins? She thought it was third cousins, through the Gaunts' great-grandmother Lycoris Monroe née Black. Could be really confusing keeping track of all this sometimes.

'So, this is where you ask us to leave her alone?' The question was casual, as though Alexis didn't really care too much one way or the other.

'I thought I might.'

'What's it to you, anyway?'

'She's my cousin. I've been charged with looking out for her.'

Alexis gave her a slightly confused, doubtful sort of look. 'Thought she was muggleborn.'

For a second, Charissa just sighed. Not that she really expected this part of the conversation to be all that bad — compared to the other Dark Houses, and despite their unnervingly unsavoury reputation, the Gaunts had been surprisingly reasonable when it came to muggleborns the last few decades. Having to clarify this just made her uncomfortable, she wasn't really sure why. 'Yeah, she is. She's my mother's sister's.'

'Ah,' Alexis said, nodding. She seemed to consider a moment, staring a little above Charissa's right shoulder.

' _We give half_.' The interjection surprised her for three reasons. One, it had been Hesper speaking, for the first time in their little exchange. Two, he'd spoken in Parseltongue — Charissa had had no idea the twins were Parselmouths. Three, he'd spoken in Parseltongue _right in front of her_. After a second of thought, she decided that wasn't too weird: if she weren't a Parselmouth herself, she doubted she would have noticed over the light background chatter of the common room, he had been so quiet. She'd been given reason before to suspect she could understand Parseltongue more distorted and at a much lower volume than English — since it worked by a process more magical than phonological, that was to be expected. After a moment, she thought of a fourth reason: Hesper and Alexis obviously lived so deep in each other's heads, she wasn't sure why Hesper had bothered speaking aloud in the first place.

Alexis nodded again, seemingly ignorant of Charissa's reaction to Hesper Speaking. 'How about this: we won't promise to leave little Jasmine completely alone — if we don't tease her when she does something worthy of teasing, why, that just wouldn't be fair to everyone else. But, we will stop going out of our way to target her specifically. That seem fair?'

Yes. That was the exact concession she had expected to come away with. Only time would tell if the twins would actually hold themselves to it, but it would have to do for now. 'Sounds perfectly fair to me.'

'Alright, then.' Alexis's crooked smirk was back, giving her face a slight, predatory cast. Trying to hint she wanted Charissa to go away now, she figured. 'Was there anything else?'

'No, thank you.' She suddenly thought of a way to wipe that smirk off Alexis's face and, in the instant afterward, the urge to do it exploded a thousandfold. For a moment she fought the impulse, but the effort was completely pointless. It was just too funny. With the slightest of efforts, which always felt to her vaguely like consciously refocusing her eyes, she slipped into the right frame of mind, and said, ' _Sleep well_ _, little ones_.' Hesper looking up from his book with a snap, both faces dominated by eyes and mouths widened with shock, both of the Gaunt twins stared up at her. She smiled at them for just a second before turning around and heading for the exit.

Charissa was absolutely certain that was going to come back and bite her in the arse one day. But, for the moment, remembering the looks on their faces kept a smirk stuck on her face all the way through her walk back to Ravenclaw Tower.

* * *

 _April 9th, 1993_

* * *

Charissa hated seeing other people cry. It might make her seem cold and uncaring, but it always made her uncomfortable. She generally kept her distance from people when they were upset, staying away until they'd managed to collect themselves, and usually did her best to avoid the topic afterward. She didn't like it.

So today came as something of an uncomfortable surprise.

She'd learned a while ago that if she wanted to be alone at Hogwarts, nearly the only way she could manage that was to hide in her room. For the last hour or two, she'd been sitting in her bed, a book open propped up against her legs. When Dora had found out her monthlies had started — Charissa had absolutely no idea how — she'd dropped by to give her a stack of books with her usual cheerful teasing. Some fiction, some not, some perfectly innocent, and some, well, _not_. Not-innocent enough she'd decided to hole up in here if she ever felt like reading any of them. Which wasn't very often, but Dora was still teasing her about it through letters, so she figured this was probably one way to get her to shut up.

She'd been right in the middle of one of the, erm, not-so-innocent passages when she heard the door click open. Her heart skipping into her throat, she folded over a corner of the page, slammed the book closed, and slipped it under her pillow. And took a moment to curse Dora in her head.

A couple seconds after the door closed again, one of the curtains around her bed — they hadn't had any first year, but they suddenly appeared in second year, for some reason — whipped aside, revealing Hermione standing there. Hair somehow even frizzier than usual, eyes bloodshot, streaks down her face. Without saying a word, Hermione moved to sit, settling in with her legs crossed at the foot of her bed. She set the book she was carrying down before her, splayed open, then crossed her arms, staring down at the sheets in silence.

Okay. This was weird. And very uncomfortable, but she'd try to ignore that for now. Couldn't exactly escape very easily when she was already in the location she usually escaped to. 'Er, Hermione, what—?'

Hermione cut her off with a wavery glare, removed one of her hands from her side to tap noisily at one of the pages. 'Run the granite-bag!' she nearly shouted in a tight, fractured voice.

Charissa blinked, then glanced down at the page. She didn't recognise the book offhand, but she saw it was probably a list of jinxes, hexes, and the proper counters for the same. The page Hermione was pointing at was one on babbling—

Oh.

A few seconds later, Charissa had recovered her wand, and lifted the babbling hex from Hermione. She immediately asked, 'Do I make sense now?' With Charissa's nod, Hermione let out a heavy sigh of relief, her face falling into her hands. 'That was _awful_.'

By now, Charissa had stopped being confused long enough to start putting the pieces together. Her discomfort at Hermione's discomfort was rapidly retreating, replaced inch by inch with growing rage. 'Who hexed you?'

Hermione peeked back up at her from behind her fingers, a hesitant sort of expression suddenly crossing what Charissa could see of her face. She had to ask a second time before Hermione would say anything. 'It doesn't matter.'

'Hermione...'

'I'm mostly used to it by now. He's been bothering me about once a week since the beginning of first year.'

That really, _really_ wasn't making Charissa less angry.

Hermione seemed to realise that, but it was only making her more frantic. 'No, Charissa, it's fine. If I just avoid him, or don't go off alone, nothing happens. He doesn't even use that word in front of other people.' Charissa felt her jaw clench when it occurred to her what word exactly Hermione was referring to. 'I think he doesn't want it getting back to you.'

'Smart boy.' Her voice had come out far more harsh than she'd meant to, so she took a moment to breathe in and out through her nose, trying to force herself calm enough her throat would stop squeezing against itself. 'Tell me, Hermione.' Didn't sound like it'd worked very well.

With a grimace, she hesitated, but after a moment finally groaned out a name. 'Draco Malfoy.'

On the one hand, Charissa wasn't exactly surprised. Draco might not have ever been quite as vocal about it around her as others — she assumed because he knew how she felt about Mum — but she'd always known he'd absorbed quite a bit of pureblood supremacist sentiment from his parents, their friends (though his mother was half-decent, she guessed). But on the other, she was completely furious. Or, at least, she assumed she was. Her chest and throat were so tight it was suddenly a bit hard to breathe, her fists had clenched all by themselves, enough they were starting to hurt. But her head was oddly clear. All she noticed was a placid, icy sort of focus, a chill slowly spreading through her veins. It was weird. 'What else has he done?'

Uncertainly at first, but with growing confidence, Hermione told her. Ever since the beginning of first year, insult after insult, taunt after taunt, shoves and jinxes and hexes in the halls. Only when Charissa wasn't around to hear it, see it, when there weren't any witnesses to report it later. As Hermione got better at avoiding him and his cronies, especially with her larger social circle starting this year, Draco had made up for it by using worse hexes, switching from taunts to threats.

But Charissa had stopped hearing what Hermione was saying by now. The cold had expanded, intensified, until she felt she'd somehow been transmuted into nothing but frozen fire. Hermione's words reduced to nothing but subtle flickering in her crystallised ears, she thought nothing, she saw nothing, only shook with a wintry fury she felt too small to contain, as though the cold would only grow until—

'Charissa!' For a long, lurching moment, she felt oddly disoriented, as though they world around her had lost all sense of continuity, jerky and twisted. But then reality snapped back into making sense, and Hermione was kneeling right in front of her, gripping her shoulders. Hermione let out a sigh — Charissa absently noticed the pale ghost of her breath — released her to sit back again. 'You were really scaring me there.' She pulled out her wand and, to Charissa's further confusion, fired a few warming charms into the air at random.

The heated air made her feel a bit uncomfortable, contrasting awkwardly with the cold still inside, but she did her best to ignore that. 'What happened?' She noticed her own voice sounded oddly unsteady.

Hermione gave her a slightly odd look. 'Accidental magic.'

'Really?' She hadn't done accidental magic in years. Beyond early childhood, it only ever happened when a person was extremely upset. She hadn't thought she was taking it _that_ badly.

'Yes. You were making it really cold, and you were—' Hermione suddenly broke off, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth.

That was curious, but Charissa decided not to ask. It didn't really matter so much, really. Charissa took in and out a long breath, then did it a few more times, until she was a bit less shaky. The cold hadn't gone away, but she felt a little more like herself. And, with her capacity for rational thought suddenly returned, she knew immediately what she was going to do. 'Well,' she said, doing her best to sound casual. 'Dear Cousin Draco isn't going to be doing any of that again.'

Hermione didn't say anything but, just for a second there, Charissa thought she looked almost afraid.

* * *

 _April 10th, 1993_

* * *

Charissa couldn't remember if she'd ever actually spoken to the Headmaster before, either before or after she started at Hogwarts. She'd certainly never been in his office before. It was probably one of the busiest rooms she'd ever been in, little enchanted devices all over the place twittering and clinking, probably enough to give her a headache if she stayed here too long. Professor Flitwick didn't seem any more impressed than she was, actually. He was standing to the side of the Headmaster's long, parchment-strewn desk, giving one of the tables laden with noisy artifacts a hooded, disgruntled look. She had to concentrate to keep the smirk off her face.

The two of them weren't alone in here, of course. Professor Vector, Professor of Arithmancy and Head of Slytherin, was seated on the corner of the Headmaster's desk. The young woman's dark hair was tied back rather messily, as though she hadn't really paid that much attention to it, and her stare was completely absent of expression. And, of course, the Headmaster of Hogwarts, High Enchanter Albus Dumbledore. Gazing over his folded, wrinkled fingers, diamond-hard eyes seemed to burn blue across the air between them, in contrast to the visibly neutral cast to his aged face. The High Enchanter wasn't happy with her.

She almost made a little nervous swallow, but she managed to catch herself.

The High Enchanter nodded at the single chair a short distance before his desk. 'Have a seat, Miss Potter.'

Charissa slipped over, walking as smoothly as she could make her legs go. Hardly a second after she'd sat, Professor Flitwick was moving over to the side of her chair, facing the Headmaster. For a moment his hand was on her shoulder, and she looked up to see a halfhearted smile cross his face for a second. She understood that well enough: he wasn't entirely happy with her either, but he would be taking her side for this conversation anyway. Good. She wasn't sure she'd be able to defend herself against all three Professors at once.

Apparently, the High Enchanter understood as well. She suspected he wasn't as happy about it as she was. 'Before we get into the repercussions of your actions, I thought you'd like an opportunity to explain yourself.'

That just made Charissa annoyed again. Dumbledore had already decided Charissa had done something worth being punished for. True enough, what she'd done would have been very far out of line if she'd done it just in the hallways or something, but in the particular context they'd been in, 'I didn't do anything wrong.'

'Didn't do anything wrong?' asked Professor Vector, a single eyebrow tracking upward. She somehow sounded more amused than anything. 'I have a student in hospital looking more overcooked sausage than second-year boy.'

Since Charissa couldn't bring herself to answer — mostly because she was worried she would burst into laughter if she opened her mouth — Flitwick clarified for her. 'I think what Miss Potter means to say is she didn't break any rules. Since Draco's injuries were sustained during a meeting of the Duelling Club, within the bounds of a properly-arranged duel, it is the strictures written by the Club that apply. The charm she used is permitted by those strictures.'

'Those rules are rather broad,' the High Enchanter said in a casual sort of tone. 'Should we allow Duelling Club members to severely harm each other, perhaps even kill each other, as is possible within those rules, with no repercussions whatsoever?'

' _Ignem circueundum_ isn't particularly dangerous.'

Professor Vector looked surprised for a moment. 'She did all that with an elemental _circueundum_? She released it inward?'

Charissa and Professor Flitwick both nodded, almost in unison. 'The way she released the rings into young Mister Malfoy was both clever and effective, yes—' She'd say so, took her two hours of practice to get it right. '—but it wouldn't have worked against almost any fourth-year. I know for a fact Mister Malfoy can manage a perfectly functional flame-freezing charm — if he'd had the presence of mind to cast that, instead of surrendering into that fatal moment of panic, he would have been perfectly fine. All what you are trying to do here amounts to, Headmaster, is punishing Miss Potter for winning a sanctioned duel against a boy who isn't nearly as talented with a wand as he seems to think he is.'

By now, it was taking absolutely every bit of concentration Charissa had to keep herself from smirking. She'd known she liked Flitwick for a reason.

'We are not here to debate whether what happened was or was not strictly allowed.' Charissa frowned at that — hadn't Dumbledore tried to argue that point only a few seconds ago? 'The issue is that it was inarguably inappropriate. Miss Potter,' he said, finally turning again directly to her, 'the charm you used on Mister Malfoy put him through no small amount of pain, far and away more than was necessary within the context of your sanctioned duel. Surely you must see how this degree of cruelty is concerning.'

He was trying to make her feel guilty — Charissa recognised that instantly. If she'd told herself a week ago she was going to be setting Draco on fire today, she probably would have expected herself to feel at least a little bad about it. But she didn't. She really didn't. She doubted burning like that would have been at all pleasant, but he would be unconscious for most of the healing process anyway. He'd only been in pain for, what, six seconds? Compare that to the year and a half he'd been tormenting Hermione and, yeah, she didn't feel bad about it at all. 'No, sir, I don't. I think he just got what was coming to him.'

A few seconds passed in silence, filled with nothing but shock from all sides. Looking distinctly displeased, his voice lower and slightly harsher, Dumbledore said, 'Care to explain, Miss Potter?'

So she did. She repeated everything she could remember from Hermione's recitation of all the ways Draco had bullied her. Every jinx, every insult, every everything. As she went on for what felt like minutes, she noticed that chill start settling over her again, but she ignored it as best she could, just kept talking. Eventually, Professor Vector held up a hand. 'Stop.' Casually, her face still blank, she slipped off the Headmaster's desk, walked to the opposite side of Charissa's chair from Flitwick, then turned back to the High Enchanter, her hand resting a few inches from Charissa head on the back.

Dumbledore gave her a very peculiar look. 'Septima?'

'Yeah,' Professor Vector said with a casual, lilting tone, 'I'm switching sides. With this new information, something very important should have crossed your mind — last spring, Lord Potter announced this Hermione Granger was under the protection of his House. I would be astounded if young Mister Malfoy is not aware of this. And as I'm sure you know, Mister Malfoy's continued abuse of Miss Granger amounts to a minor assault on the dignity of House Potter. Which means Charissa here, acting on behalf of her father, could have done far, far worse to Draco, and still have law and tradition on her side. The Wizengamot would quite likely censure you if you punish her. If not, House Potter and many of their allies would do so independently.'

Somehow, Charissa had managed to completely forget about that angle. Should anyone ask her about this in future, she decided to switch her defense from _didn't break any rules_ to _defending the honour of my House_ — much better. Dumbledore, though, didn't seem at all pleased. He was hiding it behind his usual impassive facade, but his eyes were still burning. 'I suppose they might.'

'And I suppose that's all we have to talk about, yes?'

'Not quite.' For a short moment, the High Enchanter only stared at Charissa, wrinkled old head slightly tilted. 'You are aware Hogwarts has some of the more powerful and sensitive wards in the world, Miss Potter?'

Okay. She had no idea what this was suddenly about. 'Yes, sir.'

'Were you aware a record is made of any use of dark magic within the wards, time and location noted very precisely?'

Nope, still had absolutely no clue what he was getting at. 'I suspected there might be something like that, yes.'

'Where were you yesterday, at five twenty-six in the evening?'

'Erm...' She figured out what he was implying easily enough — the wards must have recorded dark magic being used in the room she shared with Hermione and Morag at that time. After a moment of thought, she decided she had been there then. She'd been there most of the afternoon, actually, but that would have been right around when Hermione had come to get a counter-hex from her, if she remembered correctly. She hadn't really been doing any magic at all, though she had apparently had that accidental magic episode. If Dumbledore was assuming she'd been practising dark magic or something, that would at least explain why he'd been so hostile to her since she'd walked—

Oh.

She had the sudden, sinking suspicion the dark magic the wards had detected was that episode she'd had. Could accidental magic even _be_ dark? Whatever, details, look it up later. All she'd done was make it a bit colder. Cold enough she'd been able to see Hermione's breath for a moment, yes, but she didn't think that— Well, not _all_ she'd done. Hermione had _almost_ said something else before breaking off, and Charissa had never asked what else had happened. Now she was a little scared to.

This was just...

Shite. Not good.

Somehow, she wasn't sure exactly, she kept herself mostly calm, not letting out how suddenly terrified she was, how very much she needed to talk to her mother. 'I was in my bed, reading a book.'

'Which book?'

'A novel. Gift from my cousin Dora.'

'Oh? What kind of novel?'

'Well, it was _Dora_ who gave it to me, so the rather, ah, _amorous_ kind.'

From nearby, she heard Flitwick shuffle with sudden awkwardness, an repressed but unmistakable snort of laughter from Professor Vector. The High Enchanter didn't seem so convinced. He kept staring at her, meeting her eyes steadily, his own almost flaming where they were set into his face. Shimmering blue looked to burn across the air between them, and then, so suddenly her stomach jolted, the world around her seemed to _shift_ , and those hard blue eyes were burning _into_ her, and then Augí was with her, spitting with feline fury, and her head was fracturing in lines of white fire, and she thought she would _explode_ —

And then the world unshifted, she was back in her chair in front of the Headmaster's desk. For long seconds, all she could do was breathe, fast and deep, almost choked away by her throat constricted with tears of pain. Because her head _hurt_. A pain running through her eyes, through her sinuses, so deep into her skull she knew she shouldn't be able to feel pain there at all. It was a stinging agony, throbbing fire and crackling lightning, hurt so horribly she couldn't see straight, so horribly she was sure she would vomit with it at any second. Over the next moments, the agony lessened, from thought-obliterating to simply mind-numbing. Somewhere along the way, she realised someone had an arm around her shoulders, their opposite hand running down her hair, muttering soothing nonsense at her. Flitwick.

Professor Vector was speaking. 'Your claim that no student before has been affected so terribly by your _illegal use of mind magics on children_ doesn't exactly placate me.' Charissa was pretty sure she'd missed some of the conversation.

'I assure you, Septima, I only intrude where I feel I have justification to be concerned.'

'Rather thin justification, I feel. You claim dark magic was detected by the wards within the Ravenclaw student dorms, and assume Miss Potter was the culprit without evidence. It could just as easily have had nothing to do with her. She could just as easily have been the victim of any dark curse cast as the perpetrator! If any student had been _injured_ by this alleged dark magic that would have been noted by the wards as well, correct? Was there any record of such a thing?'

'No, but—'

'Respectfully, Headmaster, there is no _but_. You don't violate the minds of children without their knowledge nor consent in pursuit of such flimsy allegations. If you had reasonable cause to believe someone was in imminent danger, sure, you could act then, but you had no such cause in this case. Whether or not dark magic was cast in her room last night is immaterial. That she wouldn't have even noticed your intrusion were she not bonded with an Iya is irrelevant. _You just committed assault_ , Headmaster, and admitted to both of us that this was hardly the first time. I hope you're not so far gone as to not realise that.

'We'll be taking Miss Potter to Poppy now — hopefully she'll have an analgesic potion on hand that works with legilimency-induced headaches. If I were you, I'd spend the next while working on my apology letter to Lord Potter.'

By that time, Charissa hadn't recovered enough to walk on her own. The two professors debated a moment before Vector simply lifted her up out of the chair, one arm under her shoulders and the other her knees, and started carrying her for the door, muttering under her breath in what Charissa thought might be German. Every step she took sent shocks of pain reverberating throughout Charissa's skull, making her feel weaker and weaker with each second.

She passed out before they even made it to the hospital wing.

* * *

(Pulled from _The Daily Prophet_ , April 19th, 1993)

 _ **High Enchanter Under DLE Investigation**_

 _During þe April Seventeenþ session of þe Wizengamot, Dame Amelia Bones, Director of þe Department of Law Enforcement, took þe floor to announce þe opening of an investigation concerning þe affairs of Albus Dumbledore, þe High Enchanter himself. According to Director Bones, þe High Enchanter on Wednesday pled guilty to a single count of unauþorised use of mind magic on a minor, and voluntarily paid þe eight hundred galleon fee to þe family of þe victim, identified publicly only as a twelve-year-old Hogwarts student. (All records, including þe name of þe child, are sealed under þe 1889 Privacy of Victims Act.)_

 _According to verbal testimony collected by DLE officials from Hogwarts professors who witnessed þe act, þe High Enchanter, when confronted on what he'd just done, claimed to have done þe same wið oðer students a multitude of times over his term as Headmaster. Speaking to þe Wizengamot, Director Bones said, 'We hardly have þe resources to interview each student to have passed þrough þe school during þe High Enchanter's tenure. Þerefore, þe Department of Law Enforcement is asking anyone wið reason to believe þey or someone þey know has been mentally assaulted by þe High Enchanter to contact us, in person or by owl. Þe identities of all who come forward will be held strictly confidential for, at minimum, þe duration of þe investigation.'_

 _After þe surprise announcement, þe High Enchanter took a moment to speak in his defence. 'I have always acted, and will continue to act, as I feel best for þe children under my care, wiðin þe bounds of auþority granted to me by my office.' Þe High Enchanter continued to say he had 'every confidence' þe investigation would in time be dropped wiðout severe charges ever being formalised, and þat he would continue serving in þe meantime._

 _While a motion swiftly following þe announcement to expel þe High Enchanter from þe Wizengamot failed, þe body officially censured Master Dumbledore by a nearly unanimous vote._

 _(Statements from Wizengamot members — page 3)_

 _(DLE contact information — page 27)_

* * *

 _It just occurred to me most people probably don't know how to pronounce these Gaelic names I keep using. Ha ha, whoops. I'll start putting those here when I use them, if anyone cares._

Ailbhe _— "al-vuh" (IPA: [ʌlʲ.vʲə]), feminine name_

[But it couldn't possibly be a real dragon. That would just be ridiculous.] _— Don't worry, it's not. That **would** be ridiculous. It's basically the magical equivalent of a stuffed animal. Luna was going to talk about it in this chapter, but I decided to delay that conversation until a later scene. Just saying this here in case anyone gets the wrong idea._

Sorcha _— "sore-_ _ **h**_ _uh" (IPA: [sˠɔɾˠ.xə] or [sˠɔ.ɾˠə.xə]), feminine name_

Sylþeris (Συλθηρις) _— In my cross-fic headcanon, Salazar Slytherin's real name was_ _Silvahárr of Sylþeris. By the 1990s, the name had gradually changed to the canon version, but the original is still preserved in books and such for people to find if they care to look. Decided to change it because the canon name isn't at all historically appropriate. Did similar things with the other three Founders (save for Godric and Helga's first names, which are actually appropriate for the region and time period)._

Babbling hex _— The particular variety Hermione was hit with replaces most words with another in the person's vocabulary seemingly at random. There **is** a pattern to it, but seemingly. Which means the person can't reverse it unless they happen to be able to do it silently._

[were she not bonded with an Iya] _— A familiar bond, or even a twin bond like the Gaunts have, provides some limited defense against legilimency. In Charissa's particular case, she isn't a good enough occlumens to notice the intrusion herself, but Augí is quite nearly immune to all outside mental magics, and he rather effectively fought Dumbledore's probe through her. Gave her a bit of a headache, but still._

* * *

 _Yes, Charissa is legit a parselmouth. No, she doesn't have a fragment of Voldemort's soul in her head — obviously, since Voldemort doesn't exist. I always found that a really terrible reason for her to have the talent, so it has nothing to do with it. (Dumbledore in my other fic still_ _ **thinks**_ _it has something to do with it, but even Dumbledore can be simply wrong.) She was simply born with it._

 _That, ah, incident with Dumbledore kinda came out of nowhere. It wasn't planned. So, uh, whoops?_

 _Until next time,  
_ _~Wings_


	13. Third Year — Black

_Aþxam—_

 _You're probably wondering why I'm writing a letter instead of just talking to you when you get home. Don't worry, it's not an emergency or anyþing. I've just been meaning to ask you someþing ever since I got home for ðe summer, but I always lose my nerve before I can get ðe words out. So I þought I'd actually be able to, you know, get it out like ðis._

 _I'm sure you remember ðe whole incident where Dumbledore used legilimency on me, it didn't work, and I ended up in hospital for ðe night. I'm still not sure how ðat happened. Someþing to do wiþ Augí? Not ðe point. I never told you why he did ðat. I might have hinted it had someþing to do wiþ my little dispute wiþ Draco, but ðat wasn't it. It was because Dumbledore þought I'd used dark magic a couple days previously, and I wasn't lying convincingly enough._

 _Not ðat I'm saying I did dark magic. At least, not intentionally. I told you about how Draco had been treating Hermione. Well, ðat was ðe day I found out about it. I told you about ðat too, how she came to me for help because she had been hit wiþ a babbling hex she couldn't get rid of herself. What I didn't tell you is when Hermione told me about it I, well, it seemed sort of like an accidental magic episode. I didn't really notice what was going on, but I suddenly felt all cold inside, and apparently I was making it cold_ _outside_ _too, because when Hermione got my attention back I could see her breþ. Hermione almost said someþing else was happening too, but she didn't finish ðe sentence, and I was too angry at Draco at ðe time to ask. And now I'm not sure I want to know._

 _I didn't time it exactly, but I'm pretty sure ðat was ðe dark magic Dumbledore said ðe wards detected. I don't know what to þink about ðat. It was just accidental magic, right? Can accidental magic even_ _be_ _dark? And if it can, well, I'm not really sure what ðat means about me. I wasn't able to tell you any of ðis in person because, to be completely honest, I'm starting to worry ðat I might be, you know. Not good. And I don't know what to do about ðat._

 _I'm sorry for boðering you at work, but I don't know what's going on. And I don't know what else to say. So I just won't._

— _Charissa_

* * *

 _July 27th, 1993_

* * *

Charissa was trying to focus on her Transfiguration homework when she heard the library door creak open. She looked up to see her mother, two cups of what were probably tea floating over her right hand as she closed the door behind her with the other.

And Charissa was instantly nervous. She'd debated with herself for hours before sending that letter yesterday. When she'd ended up going to sleep before Mum even got home, she hadn't known whether to be worried or relieved. She'd had a few unreasonably paranoid thoughts she'd managed to shake herself of — that Aurors hadn't come for her yet and that Dad was still treating her normally today certainly helped. But she still had no idea what was about to happen. The thought of Mum not liking her anymore because of whatever was happening to her was... Well, it wasn't a pleasant thought. The warm smile she sent her as she walked over with her floating cups of tea helped a bit, but not a lot.

'Sorry I had to delay this a day,' Mum said, stopping to stand on the opposite side of the table Charissa was sitting at. A couple minimal waves of her left hand sent Charissa's Transfiguration homework floating into her text as it folded closed, her inkwell screwing itself shut, then all sliding a couple feet to her side. As Charissa put her quill down on top of her textbook, she almost smiled through her apprehension at the thought of her classmates seeing Mum casually do wandless magic like that. It wasn't something even very many adults could do. 'I got held up late, couldn't make it home until after midnight.' Mum sat in the opposite chair, as the cups Charissa could now visually confirm were filled with that black tea Mum always drank settled onto the table, one before each of them.

'It's fine,' Charissa said with a shrug. She picked up her tea, but almost instantly set it down again — her hand had been shaking hard enough she wasn't sure she'd be able to drink without spilling. She hoped Mum hadn't noticed that.

By the way a single eyebrow slowly raised, Charissa was sure she had. 'There's nothing to be so nervous about, sweetheart. You haven't done anything wrong. In fact, Albus already told me about the spike of black magic detected by the wards, and I still yelled at him about how he handled it.' Charissa blinked at that — she wasn't sure how to process the idea of her mother _yelling_ at the High Enchanter. 'What happened is really very simple, and it's nothing bad, but I have to explain a few things before it'll make sense.'

Mum paused for a moment, apparently waiting for some response from Charissa. She didn't really have anything to say, so she just nodded.

After a sip of tea, Mum started with, 'The first thing to keep in mind, is that the term "dark magic" is a legal definition, not a technical one, ultimately descended from the legal system of the Roman Empire. The Empire divided all magics into four categories: _artēs pūblicae_ , magics that anyone was free to study and use; _artēs condōnātae_ , magics permitted to people in certain professions or organisations, but disallowed to all others; _artēs ātrae_ , "black" magic, magics banned to anyone, outside of special dispensation; and _artēs obscūrae_ , "dark" or "unknown" arts, which all magics otherwise unclassified for whatever reason were considered to be — a new spell, for example, would be considered _ars obscūra_ until it could be properly classified by the authorities.

'In the early days of the Wizengamot, all forms of magic categorised at the time of the collapse of the Western Empire to be either _artēs ātrae_ or _obscūrae_ , and even some _condōnātae_ , were all declared to be "dark" and illegal, the severity of the punishment and how often the law was enforced widely varying between different types of magic. Over time, some magics were legalised again — most enchantments were considered _condōnātae_ , and almost all alchemy _obscūrae_ , which led to a great deal of very noisy protests among certain powerful Houses and individuals.'

Mum paused to take another sip of tea, tucking a shock of red behind her ear with the opposite hand. 'The point I'm getting at is, the term "dark magic" means absolutely nothing — they are simply the magics the Wizengamot has made illegal for whatever reason. It's not so surprising, when you think about it. Individual spells are made illegal, then legal, then illegal again for various reasons as the fancy strikes. As an even more interesting example, blood magic of all kinds is illegal to use, _unless_ you are granted a license to practise by the Ministry. Aurors can use many forms of dark magic whenever we want, and even the nastier kinds if we have good reason for it. So, it obviously has nothing to do with the nature of the magic itself. At least, not necessarily.'

None of that was really all too surprising when she thought about it. In fact, she may as well have known all that before. She'd never put what she'd felt to be true in those particular words, but _obviously_ not all dark magic could be purely bad, since Aurors used dark magic semi-regularly. Severus had healed Mum after her now-famous duel with Éjbevissza through dark magic — Healers in general apparently had to know some dark magic to reverse certain forms of curse damage. The ritual Jas would eventually be undergoing was blood alchemy, an immensely powerful branch of blood magic, which was considered dark. People did dark magic all the time, people who weren't evil. Obviously.

When Charissa tried to lift the cup again, her hand was steady. She hadn't even noticed her throat had been tightening until she felt the relief the hot tea brought. 'Okay. What would be a more meaningful term, then?'

With another warm smile, Mum said, 'Funnily enough, the Romans were right about one thing: there are four major divisions in magic. They just got the types wrong. One is, in short, arithmantic magic — all spells and rituals that can be described with arithmancy. And I do mean _pure_ arithmancy, not runic arithmancy, that's cheating. Most spells you've learned — and, actually, most all spells taught at Hogwarts — are arithmantic magic. The exceptions are almost all elemental magic, which also can't be described with pure arithmancy. Sometimes, it's not immediately obvious where the boundary between arithmantic and elemental magic is. For example, that _ignem circueundum_ you like so much is elemental magic, but a simple _īnflammet_ is not.

'Black and white magic, though, are much more readily obvious. _Any_ spell or ritual that requires an emotional component — _emotion_ , not thought — _must_ be either black or white. There are no exceptions.'

'But...' Charissa frowned at her for a moment, trying to organise her thoughts in a way that didn't sound immediately accusatory or doubtful. 'But, a _lot_ of magic requires a specific emotion from the castor. You've even taught me some.' Not very many, but...

Mum nodded. 'Yes. The ones I've taught you were mostly white magic, a few black. None especially powerful, and none illegal, true, but they still count.' Before Charissa could say anything in response — not that she was entirely sure _what_ she wanted to say to the knowledge that her _mother_ had taught her _black magic —_ Mum asked a question that seemed like a complete change of subject: 'What do you know about the Fae?'

Charissa just blinked for a few seconds. 'Ah, almost nothing. They're hardly mentioned in history class. I'm taking the Ðīɬ Anðwnn class starting this year, though.'

'That class is mostly useless,' Mum said with a wince, 'but I guess it's better than nothing. There are two main types of Fae, which we usually call Elder Fae and Lesser Fae. Goblins and carīdwð are Lesser Fae, but it's the Elder Fae that are important here. There are twenty-eight different species, all of which are immensely powerful in magic and essentially immortal — they can die from violence or accident, but not from age. Each race is led by a single clan, which are sort of like our Noble Houses, but greater in population. The twenty-eight clans are divided into three different political groupings which we usually refer to as courts.'

That word sparked a vague memory, one it took her a second to place. 'You mean that Seelie–Unseelie thing? I thought that was just muggle stories.'

Mum shrugged. 'It is and it isn't. Muggle literature is correct in that there is conflict between the Fae, but incorrect in both the number of factions and the complexity of the alliances. Humans can't correctly pronounce the proper names of the three factions — or, our ancestors were _told_ we can't, anyway — but we usually call them the Court of the Sun, the Court of the Moon, and the Court of the Earth, mostly for convenience.

'You might have noticed that there are three factions but twenty-eight ruling clans, a number not divisible by three.' Charissa blinked — she hadn't thought about the numbers long enough to put together the significance of that. 'Thirteen clans are unified in the Court of the Sun, eleven in the Court of the Moon, and only four in the Court of the Earth. The three factions are considered to be more or less equally powerful, and have been in a political deadlock for most of their history — a history quite a bit longer than ours, which is unsurprising, given their longevity.'

That really didn't make a lot of sense to her. She would think those Earth people — which she thought was a weird choice of name, considering Fae weren't strictly _from_ Earth, but that didn't really matter at the moment — would be at a severe disadvantage, being that outnumbered. And it'd be to the benefit of the other two to eliminate or assimilate the third, so they wouldn't have to divide their efforts so much. She thought of a potential cause for the stalemate immediately. 'Are those four races just that much more powerful? or numerous?'

Mum gave her a look for a second, before blinking and shaking her head. 'Oh, no, not exactly. While some races are more powerful individually or more populous than others, or both, that's not the reason. See, the entire _race_ doesn't necessarily support the same faction as their ruling _clan_. The Courts of the Sun and Moon may have an advantage among the ruling clans and many of the others among the socially powerful, but the Court of the Earth is much more popular among the _commoners_ of all races. It's just the four for which they have the allegiance of the leadership. If that makes sense. In fact, from what we've been able to tell, those twenty-four races not only have to deal with external issues with the races lead by the other two factions, but almost constant insubordination and sabotage amounting to low-key civil wars among their own people. The other four have the same problem too, but less so. I did say the muggle stories underestimate the complexity of the situation for a reason.'

'Okay.' Yes, that all did sound needlessly complicated, and not really something she cared about right now. She'd probably be learning all about it this year anyway. Or maybe not — Mum had said the class was nearly useless. But, back to the point, 'What does all that have to do with anything?'

'It has everything to do with it.' Mum pretended not to notice Charissa rolling her eyes. 'The three courts are culturally associated with three of the four kinds of magic — the Court of the Sun with white magic, the Court of the Moon with black magic, and the Court of the Earth with elemental magic. It was Fae visitors to this world who taught our distant ancestors these arts, back millennia ago, after which we eventually developed our own arithmantic magic. Black, white, and elemental magic in general were not _invented_ _by_ humans, but _taught to_ us by the Fae. Clever people invent new variations on their own all the time, but the arts themselves are Fae magic.

'The point I'm getting at is, all the Fae of the Court of the Moon are not irredeemably evil, or even evil at all. Some of the magic associated with their culture can do horrible, horrible things, yes, but much of it is harmless. There are black spells to do almost anything. There are black healing spells, black defensive spells, black transfigurations, even black levitation charms. Similarly, the Fae of the Court of the Sun aren't all nice people. There are just as many white spells to maim, dominate, torture, and kill as there are black. The only difference is the emotion you need to cast it. For example, a black spell to kill someone might be fueled by intense hatred of whoever you're aiming it at — in fact, the infamous Killing Curse is such a black spell — but a white spell to do the same exact thing might use desperation, or even pity. I don't know myself, I only use white magic defensively.'

Charissa thought she was starting to see the ultimate point Mum was getting at. But before she could let her move on toward that, she had another question to ask. 'If white magic is just as good to attack as defend with, why don't you?'

Mum shrugged. 'White and black magic require different emotions for the same purpose. I can defend myself or others just fine with either, but I find it _easier_ , personally, to draw upon the feelings required to fight back with black magic than with white magic. It _is_ a personal thing. I know people who are the exact other way around — Alice, for one. To be honest, I think I'm just better at black magic than white. It's easier for me.'

That admission left Charissa temporarily speechless. She'd never thought she would hear her mother say _black magic_ was _easy_ for her. She had no idea what to think about that. 'If there's nothing wrong with black magic, why is so much of it illegal?'

'There's a lot of white magic that's illegal too, banned alongside the rest as dark.'

Charissa just stared at her.

'I'm serious. So much black magic is banned as dark magic not _because_ it's black magic, but for all kinds of other reasons, sometimes for no good reason at all. The same is true of white magic.'

'Then why is any of it illegal in the first place?'

'Politics from centuries ago. It's a very, very long story, and this isn't the time.' Her lips tilted into a little smirk. 'To tease at the answer in a frustratingly oblique way, you might have noticed there are the same number of factions among the Fae as there are in the Wizengamot.'

Mum wasn't kidding — that was frustrating. But she guessed that wasn't very important right now. She was pretty sure Mum was getting back to the point of this whole discussion. 'So, okay. What was the point you were getting to?'

'The point is that there is nothing _inherently_ wrong about black magic. Using it to harm innocent people, of course, _that_ is wrong, I won't argue that. But harming innocent people is wrong no matter how you go about it. And that isn't what you did. You were so deeply consumed by a black emotion that you temporarily lost control of your magic. That is the only reason it came out as black. And there's nothing wrong with that. If Albus had known that was what happened, he wouldn't have been nearly so hostile either — his problem was he knew some sort of black magic event had happened in your room, but he didn't know _what kind_. Your incident with Draco made him a bit more suspicious than he justifiably should have been, and you dodging the question just made it worse.

'Though,' Mum added a bit lower, a slight grimace on her face, 'Albus has long been more leery of black magic than he probably should. I don't think it would surprise you if I said he uses white magic all the time, but Grindelwald used black and elemental magic almost exclusively, and I think that kind of soured him on the subject. But that's his personal problem, has nothing to do with you.'

Oh. Well, that was a little bit of a relief, then. She wasn't sure she felt _entirely_ better — she thought this might all be too complicated for her to take in all at once. But better than nothing, anyway. At least she didn't have to keep worrying she was inevitably going to turn into some crazy Dark Lady or something. So she nodded. 'Alright, then.'

'Just two more things you need to know before I'm done.' Mum had a rather intense expression on her face all of a sudden, staring back at Charissa with a level gaze. 'First, Fae can use both black and white magic as much as they like with no consequences, but, for reasons no one really understands, humans can't. Use too much of one over the other, and your body will gradually adjust to its presence. Eventually, you'll lock your own magic, so you can only use one or the other. You _can_ cast the opposite with effort, and readjust your body if you do it enough, but it is very, _very_ painful, like setting your own insides on fire—' The dull way Mum said that, Charissa somehow knew she was talking from personal experience. '—so I don't recommend it. I checked when you got home, and it's nothing you have to worry about yet, but it's just something to keep in mind.

'And the second is that you seem to have inherited most of your magical abilities from me. There are some good things about that. I'm more powerful than your father, and I have a talent with elemental magic, mostly fire magics, that you've inherited. But, perhaps unfortunately, it seems you also got my natural aptitude for black magic. All I have to say about that is _be careful_. _Don't_ use any spells you didn't learn from me, _don't_ study it on your own, and _don't_ use it _too much_. You don't want to lock yourself into black magic this young, if ever, and you _definitely_ don't want to give people the wrong idea about you. I wasn't lying when I said there's nothing inherently wrong with black magic. The problem is so few people seem to realise that. So. Be careful.'

The stern warning set her stomach twisting into knots, so badly that a half hour later, when Mum brought her outside to work on hex deflection some more, she still didn't feel any better.

* * *

 _August 29th, 1993_

* * *

Charissa tapped her wand twice against the stone wall, crossed her arms behind her back, and settled in to wait.

She had hardly expected she would be going down to the Slytherin common room her very first full day back at Hogwarts. But then, she hadn't exactly expected to hear the name _Bellatrix Black_ called during the Sorting, either. Not to say that was at all an unusual name. Bellatrix was actually one of the more common names among Black women over the centuries — it was also the name of one of her aunts, Aunt Andi's elder sister who she'd hardly ever met. The unusual part was her existence at all. There _were_ no eleven-year-old Blacks. The youngest child of a Black she knew of was Draco. There were two families called Black out there that weren't part of the Noble House she knew of, but neither sent their children to Hogwarts anyway, and _they_ wouldn't have used the name Bellatrix. It was a House Black name, they wouldn't have done that. She'd nearly wrote a letter home asking what in Muirgen's name was going on, but she'd realised that, if she'd never heard of this Bellatrix, her parents likely wouldn't have either.

So she was going straight to the source.

Before too long, a section of the wall vanished, replaced by that odd greenish blur that was all she could see past the privacy charm. Standing just inside, to her surprise, were the Gaunt twins — she'd expected an older student, like last time — dressed in expensive-looking muggle clothes instead of their uniforms. Actually, when she thought about it, that they'd been the ones to answer was probably _less_ surprising than what they were wearing, but she didn't really care about that right now. 'Cousin,' Hesper said, giving a little nod in sync with his sister.

After Charissa returned the greeting, Alexis said, ' _You look for_ Black _girl._ '

Charissa frowned. Alexis had spoken in Parseltongue. Well, mostly Parseltongue — she'd said the name normally, since there wasn't an easy way to say most names in Parseltongue. Come to think of it, she wasn't entirely sure _how_ she knew there was no easy way names, but she did. Being a Parselmouth was weird sometimes. Over most of last year, one or both of them had been getting her alone whenever they could, or just hissing quietly enough the people around wouldn't hear, trying to get her to repeat her use of Parseltongue, or even show she understood them at all. She'd been able to avoid it so far, no matter how annoying or intentionally insulting they got. But now they had her trapped. Which was probably why they'd slipped in to answer in the first place. Damn. ' _Yes, good_ ,' she said in something between a hiss and a sigh. 'Is she here?'

The twins gave her a matched pair of victorious smirks. ' _So short, cousin_ ,' Hesper said — the Parseltongue term didn't match "cousin" precisely, but Charissa understood what he meant.

In a moaning hiss that didn't match the wild grin on her face, Alexis added, ' _So rude. You think she hate us, brother?_ '

' _I think maybe, sister._ '

' _So short._ '

' _So rude_.'

Charissa sighed, doing her absolute best to force back her annoyance. This was really not what she wanted to be dealing with today. ' _Yes. Good. We all Speakers here. How nice. Must talk later. Can see her now?_ '

Alexis shook her head a little, still smiling to herself. ' _Only tease, only little. So few Speakers, never knew you be too._ '

' _Only family_ ,' Hesper added with a little nod. ' _Mother, Grandfather, Great-grandmother._ ' Those terms weren't precise either, but close enough.

' _And Uncle and Aunt and Sylx_.'

It took Charissa a moment, repeating the name under her breath, to figure out who that was. 'Wait, Sorcha? _Cousin Speaker too?_ ' Both the Gaunts nodded at her. Huh. She hadn't known that. ' _Her brother?_ ' Sorcha's younger brother had been Sorted into Slytherin yesterday as well, but they shook their heads. Hmm. They'd only referred to one aunt, so apparently the ability had only made it to three of Lord Gaunt's children — it was a well-known fact the Lord Gaunt and his mother were both Parselmouths, so those didn't surprise her. They also hadn't mentioned their elder brother, so she guessed he didn't have it either. Interesting. Of course, how she had inherited it from seemingly nowhere was objectively more unusual, but there had been Black Parselmouths before, so she'd always just figured it'd skipped a few generations.

'Anyway,' Charissa said, bringing herself back to why she was here, 'I'd really like to talk to her. If only to ask who her parents are. I can't think of where she came from.'

Alexis gave her an absolutely evil-looking smirk. ' _Promise talk later, then let in._ '

It was obvious what Alexis was asking. The two of them must want more conversations in Parseltongue rather badly. The magic of the language even had mild binding properties, pushing people toward fulfilling whatever promise made — it was a relatively weak compulsion, and it only worked between two natural Parselmouths, but it was still there. She let out a long sigh. ' _Yes. Good. I swear we talk later_.' Charissa felt what she could only describe as a peculiar jerking sensation in her sense of her own magic, one she assumed was her little oath exerting itself. And she was committed. Great. ' _Can see her now?_ '

Still grinning at her like a pair of lunatics, the twins stepped out of the way, bracketing the door. 'She's in her room. To the left, third floor. You'll know the door.'

The common room revealed itself as Charissa walked into it, and she winced at the appearance of the couple dozen people inside. She hoped the entrance had some sort of silencing barrier around it. By how the few people who glanced at her only did with complete disinterest, she assumed no one had heard the Parseltongue. Good. That could have been disastrous. She walked toward the wall of glass tinted green by the dark water beyond, turned into a short hallway to the left, which ended abruptly in a twisting staircase, bound by a railing of intricately-carved silver. Not quite what she'd expected, but okay.

One floor down was a single door, with a highly stylised golden symbol embossed on the wood. She had no idea what it meant. Feeling a little odd, she nonetheless continued down to the next floor. This one also had a single door, with another fancy symbol on it, but this one she recognised: a zḗta, in what looked to be a florid Byzantine-style script, an oddly serpentine-looking macron inscribed above it. She had a sudden suspicion. She went down another floor, finding yet another door, this one with a similarly fancy álfa below another macron. She understood now: Greek numerals. Álfa was one, zḗta was seven. The first one must have been a Byzantine-era epísēmon, which she wouldn't have expected herself to recognise. She had no idea why the Slytherin dormitory randomly used Greek numerals, but she decided it didn't really matter. She pushed open the door before her, the third floor belonging to the first-years, and stepped into the hallway beyond.

Like her own house, and unlike what she'd been told of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, the Slytherins weren't all in a single room, but spread out between several. Some people got their own rooms, some people didn't — though she'd heard people who had to share rooms in lower years often suddenly got their own in the later years, operating by some rules apparently nobody knew. After looking around a bit, she found what had to be the correct room. She hadn't known, but wasn't entirely surprised to find, that each of the doors was flanked with the family sigils of a few different Houses — the ones the inhabitant was most closely related to, she could only assume. At one door, the familiar triple jackdaw of House Black was most prominent, another she recognised as belonging to House Rosier a bit smaller just under it. Rosier had never been one of the Noble Houses in Britain, but they had been in France — back when France used to have Noble Houses — so she guessed that counted. Great-aunt Druella, grandmother of both Dora and Draco, had been born a Rosier, so that explained that: she was starting to get the feeling this Bellatrix was her aunt Bellatrix's daughter, which would raise more questions than it answered if true. But right next to Rosier, of equivalent size, was that...was that _Selwyn_? When was the last time a Black had married a Selwyn? Well, not _married_ — Aunt Bellatrix was still single and, she'd heard people mutter, probably always would be — but _still_. Was her father a Selwyn? No, no, the House's crest would be more prominent if he were. _He_ must have a Selwyn parent, then, while not being a member of the House himself. Who could that be? House Selwyn was far from extinct, but there still really weren't that many—

She was taking too long thinking about this. She could just _ask_. She was being so absurd today. Raising a hand, she gave the door three quick knocks, then settled in to wait. Only a few seconds later, the door was wrenched open, the girl inside already speaking in a growl — a rather ineffective one, since that wasn't really something the throats of eleven-year-old girls did so easily. 'I thought I told you to—' The girl broke off, blinking at her for a second, before a sheepish expression crossed her face. 'Sorry, I assumed it was Malfoy again.'

Charissa took a moment to look at the girl. She was tiny, even for her age — probably even smaller than Luna. Same dark hair and pale face as most black nobility, but her eyes were a peculiar dark grey, characteristic of House Black and their near relatives in particular, a few more colorful flecks almost appearing to be an unnatural violet. She'd only seen something similar in one person she'd ever met, so she probably had the guess of mother correct. 'Has Draco been bothering you already?'

The young Bellatrix was slow to respond, first frowning at the Ravenclaw colours on her robes, then a little deeper at, she assumed, Charissa's use of their cousin's first name. 'Yes, the little ponce won't leave me alone. Keeps trying to drag me away to introduce me to this or that person I'd never heard of. Must have told him to piss off a good six times now, but he keeps coming back.' The longer burst of speech allowed Charissa to notice something else: Bellatrix's accent was a bit _off_. She didn't sound at all like how people raised in the culture usually talked, with the somewhat more heavily-pronounced Celtic touch on the Germanic language. She sounded a lot like...well, what Mum sounded like when she was especially tired or had a little too much wine. Like a muggleborn. A muggleborn from a certain area of the country, actually, though she didn't even know precisely where.

And that just raised more questions than it answered again.

'Draco never really did know when to give up.' She really hoped they wouldn't have a problem again this year. She'd really hate to have to set him on fire again. Well, no, she wouldn't, but dealing with the professors afterward would be an unnecessary hassle. 'Charissa Potter, by the way.'

The girl let out a sharp little sigh, but nodded. 'Bella Black,' she said, holding out a hand to be shook. Charissa was a touch confused for a second, but followed through easily enough — as far as she knew, doing that at introductions was a muggle thing. 'But I figure you already knew that.'

Charissa smiled, shrugged a little. 'I did see you put on a talking magical hat in front of the whole school.'

Bella snorted. She stepped away from the door, moving back into her room, leaving the door open behind her. A little hesitantly, Charissa followed her in, pulling the door closed behind her. Bed, sofa, desk and chair, everything in rosy woods, glittering silvers, shining blacks. Drifting back over to her bed, where a book was spread open on the dark sheets, Bella said, 'I thought _Mother_ had gone barmy when she told me about that. Well, more barmy than usual, anyway.'

The note of derision on _Mother_ had been obvious, but Charissa thought it better to ignore it. After another second of hesitation, she decided to drop herself onto the couch. She didn't know how the girl would take to her sitting next to her on the bed. 'I'm guessing you were named after your mother.'

A slight grimace crossed the girl's face as she laid herself out on her front, head propped up above her book. 'I was sure you're here to ask me about her.'

Charissa didn't bother lying. Or addressing the accusation at all. 'Aunt Bellatrix always has been a bit bizarre, hasn't she?'

Looking up at her with a clear frown, Bella repeated, 'Aunt Bellatrix?'

'Technically, second cousins. But she's older than me by enough calling her "Cousin" would just be weird.'

'Hmm.' Bella turned back down to her book, flipped to the next page. After a few seconds of silence, she said, 'You can just go ahead and ask, you know. I've figured out by now everyone is going to. You can go tell everyone so they'll stop sodding pestering me.'

Charissa shrugged. 'I don't mean anything by it, I'm just curious. I thought we were mostly out of Blacks. Far as I knew, no one had any idea Aunt Bellatrix had a daughter. Or any interest in having one.'

Bella snorted again, shaking her head to herself. 'I'll say.'

Okay... 'What do you mean?'

With a sigh and a roll of her eyes, Bella turned back up to look at her, an unamused sort of smirk on her face. 'To summarise a long, boring story, I wouldn't be surprised if you've seen more of my mother than I have.'

Charissa felt herself frowning. 'Don't know about that. I can't have met her more than six times total.'

'Well, that would be four times more than I have, wouldn't it?' She turned back to her book. 'Once when I was six. I'd been making things happen, scaring the shite out of Bridget — old woman I've lived with since I was four — and this weird lady in a fancy dress shows up, claims she's my mother, explains all about magic. Hangs around for a day or so before vanishing again. Showed up again on my birthday this year, spouting off all kinds of nonsense about Noble Houses and etiquette and all that. Which was really awkward, because by that time I wasn't even convinced she was real anymore, that I'd made her up or something. That, and she's a bit nuts. But that letter came from here, and that magic the goblins do says I'm a Black, so I guess she's not _completely_ nuts. But that's it, I've only met her those two times. Don't know what more I can tell you than that.'

Okay, that was— Actually, no, she couldn't even work up the nerve to be surprised by that. Aunt Bellatrix was hardly the most maternal person in the world. Hiding her daughter away to be raised by muggles seemed a bit out of character, but, really, who could tell with her? She hardly made any sense on a good day.

Trying to think of what possible motivation Bellatrix could have to do something like this, she suddenly hit on a peculiar thought: Lady Cassiopeia had no heir apparent. House Black had rather complicated rules for the passing on of the title, and all the usual candidates in the proper generation had been disqualified for one reason or another. Cassiopeia _had_ named Dora heir select, but a pureblood child of any woman in the family would easily be able to contest Dora inheriting the title when the time came. It would probably end up before the Council of Family Law for mediation, where Dora would almost definitely lose — the Council's bias against muggleborns and halfbloods was well-known. Lady Cassiopeia wasn't doing so well these days, and would likely pass within the year, at which point Bella here would be too young to become Lady Regnant herself. Her mother would probably take power as regent instead.

Charissa was suddenly positive that was exactly what was happening. Twelve years ago, Aunt Bellatrix had intentionally gotten herself pregnant, then hid the child away, just so she could spring her daughter's existence on the rest of the House, who, due to their ignorance, would be unprepared to counter her claim. She probably hadn't expected Cassiopeia to last this long — Bella coming to Hogwarts had dulled the advantage of surprise a bit.

That was...quite possibly the coldest thing she had ever heard.

And, she was pretty sure, Bella herself had no knowledge of any of this.

This was so messed up.

Charissa drew herself back to the moment, doing her best to suppress her sudden nausea. It looked like Bella was distracted enough by her book she hadn't noticed Charissa checking out for a moment there. 'How about your father?'

Bella glanced back up at her, shrugged. 'Dunno. Never met him. I think she might have called him "Barty" once, but I'm not positive she meant him.'

It only took her a second to recognise the name. 'Wait, _Barty_? Bartimeus Crouch?' That would explain the Selwyn on the door, at least — his mother had been a Selwyn.

This time, Bella didn't even bother looking up, staring at her book and saying in a flat voice, 'You are asking the wrong person.'

Charissa had no idea what to think about this anymore. This wasn't even close to what she had expected. This whole situation was just completely insane. She took a long breath, trying to think. 'Tell me about Bridget, then.'

Looking slightly surprised, Bella glanced up to stare at her for a moment. Apparently, that _wasn't_ a question anyone had bothered asking her so far. After a few seconds, she turned back to her book, and started rambling. Bridget and her husband Daniel had been the last in a short sequence of foster parents, most of whom she didn't remember. After about a year or so, she'd been more permanently adopted. Daniel had died sometime between then and now, but Bella didn't give any details, just brushed over it. Bella told her all kinds of things, about where she lived, what Bridget was like, what the neighbors were like.

Charissa came to a very uncomfortable conclusion rather quickly: Bella hardly liked living with this Bridget at all. Not the worst living situation she'd heard of — it wasn't like she was being abused or anything — but not the happiest either. But, soon afterward, she had an idea. It could be seen as a somewhat manipulative idea, but she'd only be interfering with Aunt Bellatrix's own dirty schemes, so she hesitantly called it a wash. 'This is kind of coming out of nowhere, and feel free to tell me to piss off if you want.'

'Erm.' Bella turned a raised eyebrow on her. 'Okay?'

'Would you prefer living somewhere else? Aunt Andi and Uncle Sirius are both really nice in their own ways, and I'm sure they'd love having you around.' Well, Andi would, anyway — she was confident Sirius and Peter would be willing to look after her over the holidays, but she wasn't entirely positive how happy they'd be about it. They could be hard to predict sometimes.

For a long moment, Bella was silent, simply staring over at her with eyes slightly narrowed. Charissa waited, trying not to look like she had any ulterior motives at all. Although, now that she thought about it, maybe explaining she was trying to pull one over on Aunt Bellatrix would actually get Bella to like the idea more. But, no, Bella was talking now. 'I'm not sure if she would let that happen. She must have kept me away for a reason.'

Charissa didn't have to ask who Bella meant by _she_. 'Well, Aunt Bellatrix wouldn't necessarily have a say in the matter. If Cassiopeia — she's the head of the family at the moment — gives her approval, there's absolutely nothing Bellatrix can do. And I'm positive she will,' if not for the right reasons: Charissa strongly doubted the Lady Black would approve of one of her grandnieces staying with a muggle.

What felt like several minutes passed, Bella just staring at her, blank-faced.

Then her lips tilted into a smirk.

* * *

 _October 22nd, 1993_

* * *

'It's just really starting to annoy me, is all.'

Charissa tried not to let out a tired sigh. Tried and failed. 'They're really not that bad, Hermione. And they're not around all the time, either.'

Arms crossed over her chest, Hermione let out a characteristic huff of frustration. The two of them walked into the library side by side, Hermione's previously piercing voice unconsciously dropping to a sharp whisper. 'I just don't like them following us around, is all. I can't talk to any of them, they're so terrible. Black is just infuriating, and the Gaunts are the two creepiest people I think I've ever met.'

Charissa shook her head to herself. This wasn't the first time they'd had this argument. Ever since the beginning of term, the twins had been cornering her every once in a while, dragging her away from her friends so they could talk, trying to scare the others off by being just _odd_ if she refused. She'd been able to avoid it a few times, but not every time — she'd probably spoken more Parseltongue these two months than she had the rest of her life combined. Bella had just been, well, sort of stalking her. Sometimes actually talking with her and the others, sometimes just sitting nearby with a book, other times silently watching from a distance. Charissa hadn't done a thing to discourage her. Which she knew was really annoying Hermione, since the two didn't get along _at all_. But she liked Bella well enough so far, so she didn't see much reason to tell her off. Possibly partially, to be completely honest, out of pity — she was well aware Bella hadn't ever had family before, or even really much in the way of friends. Bella had been elsewhere increasingly often, as she made friends in her own year, but Charissa still didn't think she could bring herself to do or say anything to her that could even be misinterpreted as rejection.

But, then, she didn't expect Hermione to understand that. She'd been surrounded by family growing up. True, so had Charissa, but...

Hermione and her father could still hold a full conversation without getting furious with each other. Hermione and her father could still sit in the same room for more than ten minutes without the air growing tense and frigid.

And, yes, maybe Charissa wasn't _totally_ innocent when it came to the problems she and Dad were having. He wasn't the only one who'd said something he couldn't take back. But she definitely didn't want to accidentally push Bella away too. The girl didn't have anyone else to fall back on.

But by being nice to Bella, she might end up poisoning her friendship with Hermione. She _definitely_ didn't want that.

She was starting to understand those comments Mum made sometimes about Skýlla and Khárybdis.

They weren't sure if they would be the first of their little group to get to the library, so they searched the tables just in case. Hermione was the first one to spot Adrienne, sleeping on their table in the back corner — Luna had had that thing, a semi-independent magical construct in the form of a dragon her mother had made for her, for as long as Charissa had known her. When they got closer, Charissa noticed the twisting, colourful pendants plaited into a cloth bag, sitting on one of the chairs, twisting in all colours of the rainbow. That was definitely Luna's, but she didn't see any evidence of anyone else having gotten here yet. Shrugging to each other, they took seats next to each other, Charissa at her usual spot by the window.

Within five minutes, everyone else had shown up. The second-years Charissa had successfully gotten together: Jas, Gwyneira, Ginny. Even Neville came today, though he didn't study with them all the time — he had a group of Hufflepuff friends he spent most of his time with, but he did still meet with them sometimes, especially when they had work to do for Runes. Both she and Hermione had started looking into the subject early, so hadn't had any difficulty so far, and that wasn't even counting Luna. The quiet little second-year had somehow talked Flitwick into letting her into third-year Arithmancy and Runes. When Hermione had asked about it, Luna had said she'd only complained, near the end of last term, about how dreadfully bored she'd been in first year, that the letter she'd gotten from Flitwick over the summer telling her she'd be in two third-year classes the next year had been a complete, though pleasant, surprise. Not that Luna was at all at a disadvantage — her mother had been teaching her magic theory and Runes when other kids were learning how to read. If anything, she was ahead of the rest of the class.

They'd maybe been there five minutes before Luna reappeared, two thick books stacked in her arms, seeming completely unsurprised to find her table suddenly full.

Charissa didn't get to work right away, even as Hermione devolved into one of her familiar lectures to Neville. Strong verbal inflections in Nordic, sounded like — how those were written in the largely logographic symbols used in magic could be a bit unpredictable. Instead she watched the second-years for a little bit. Not Luna, who was just sitting reading to herself, but the other three. They had books and parchment out, but hadn't gotten to work yet either, chittering excitedly to each other about something. Quidditch, she decided after listening a moment. All three had tried out for their respective house teams, she knew, but none had gotten in, not even making reserves. Jas had told her the Captain had taken her — er, _him_ , Charissa still slipped that up half the time — aside afterward to suggest _he_ try out next year. Apparently some of their chasers were graduating, Charissa didn't know, she didn't pay attention to that. Jas had been the weirdest fusion of disappointed and excited Charissa hadn't been able to keep herself from laughing.

Charissa couldn't help being glad she'd gotten the three of them together, with Luna also tagging along when she felt like it. She'd heard Jas had been having some problems with some of their year — nothing too serious, and the Gaunts had backed off completely from the start of this term, for some reason, but _he_ still didn't have much in the way of friends. But, thankfully, Jas and Gwyneira were nearly inseparable, despite having been Sorted into different houses. She'd even overheard adults speculating the two would almost certainly be lovers in a couple years, and had little reason herself to think them wrong. And, since Ginny and Gwyneira had always gotten along, Ginny was always around too. Jas was happy, Charissa was almost certain of that, the way he was always smiling. Sometimes smiles were lies, and she'd admit herself she wasn't perfect at figuring out when, but. She was pretty sure.

Good. That was good.

So she cast it out of mind, turning to her translation for Runes.

She didn't know how much later it was, she heard an exasperated huff from Hermione at her side. 'Luna, could you put your dragon away? It fell asleep on my book.' Charissa glanced up to see Adrienne had indeed drifted a bit across the table in her slumber, now half-draped over Hermione's Runes text.

Luna tilted her head, perpetually wide eyes staring at Hermione. 'She's always liked you. It's your wand, I expect.' Hermione had a dragon heartstring wand, Charissa knew — though she wasn't sure how the tiny, semi-sentient construct could possibly know that, why it should even matter, or, for that matter, how Luna had found out.

There was an argument coming. Charissa could feel it in the sudden rising of sparks racing across Hermione's skin. Not physical sparks, not ones she could see with her eyes, but they were there. She'd noticed before that, when Hermione got emotional, she lost control of her magic far easier than most everyone else she knew. Nothing dramatic, usually, just flashes of power rolling over her surroundings, sometimes her hair fluffing up more than it did already. Out of curiosity, Charissa had asked Flitwick: such could happen in abnormally powerful young people, advanced magical strength combined with mental immaturity. Apparently, the only reason the same didn't happen with Charissa, as he'd said the two of them had an almost equivalent degree of natural power, was the instruction she'd been getting in duelling, which helped her develop a tighter control of her magic.

Flitwick had suggested she suggest to Hermione she join the duelling club too, but she hadn't bothered — she knew without asking Hermione wouldn't be interested, would rather take the somewhat longer, more academic path to gaining the same self-mastery.

And besides, that flash of warning was very convenient for ending disputes before they really started. Charissa leaned forward toward Adrienne, lifting the sleepy little thing off Hermione's book. Feeling Hermione's raised power collapsing inward again, and with a little sigh, she said to Adrienne, ' _You make trouble only, yes, silly thing._ '

Even as she spoke, she heard a trio of gasps — the nearest surprised, the next fascinated, the furthest terrified. Followed almost immediately by the crashing clatter of wood striking stone.

An instant later, Charissa realised she'd just spoken in Parseltongue. She hadn't meant to. It must be much closer to the surface now, after all her conversations with the twins, the tiny dragon in her hands appearing just snake-like enough to draw it out by accident, in a moment of distraction.

She'd just spoken Parseltongue in public, right in front of three people who hadn't known about it yet. Including Hermione.

Her eyes drifted heavily closed. _Shite_.

'You're a _Parselmouth_!?' Hermione hissed at her, shock and disbelief heavy on her voice. Then, in a startled motion, she drew out her wand and raised a dense privacy charm over them — in her agitation, she'd managed to cast it silently.

'Yes,' Charissa said with another sigh. Dreading what she might find, she opened her eyes, looked around the table. Hermione was staring at her with a combination of curiosity and uncertainty. Luna, sitting just across from her, had a vague sort of smile on her face, her eyes almost seeming to gleam slightly in the window-tinted sunlight. Neville and Gwyneira just looked a little exasperated — but then, they'd both known already. Jas, who'd also already known — had asked a seemingly endless stream of questions about it when he'd found out, actually — was directing an incredulous glance at Ginny, at the end of the table. Ginny was on her feet, her expression more one of disbelief, horror, glaring at Charissa with terrified, yet vengeful eyes, as though suddenly finding herself in the presence of a dangerous monster, one she had to protect herself and her friends against. She groaned to herself — she would have expected the Weasley to freak out on her.

She belatedly realised the crashing sound she'd heard was Ginny's chair falling back to the floor. The girl must have pushed herself from the table so hard it'd tipped over, scrambling back to her feet before Charissa had looked her way.

She was a little amused despite herself.

' _Never knew you be Speaker_.' Charissa started at the sound of someone _else_ speaking Parseltongue, turning toward the source to find—

Luna. Staring at her with an expression that looked _almost_ eager, filled with energy the girl very rarely had. Charissa had no idea how to react to that. She'd had no idea Luna was a Parsel—

Only, Charissa thought, she _wasn't_ , not exactly. The Parseltongue she'd heard hadn't quite... _felt_ right. It was hard to put words to. It'd _sounded_ right, the proper noises in the proper sequence, making perfect sense. But proper Parseltongue wasn't a normal language. It had a magic to it, a nebulous impression of meaning and intent that followed the sound of it across the air. Luna's Parseltongue was missing that part, the magic part. Charissa assumed that meant she wasn't a Parselmouth, simply spoke Parseltongue.

She hadn't known that was _possible_ , but this was _Luna Lovegood_ , so decided to just pass the weirdness off.

'Ah, well.' Charissa hesitated for a moment, feeling the most pressing need to clear her throat. 'Mum told me to hide it, so. Just some of the family knows. That's why Neville, Gwyneira, and Jas don't look surprised at all.' She glanced at Adrienne, still in her hands, laid the little traitor down on the table. Stupid thing was still sleeping.

'It's _dark magic_!' This from Ginny, said in something between a frantic whisper and a keening screech, as though repressing the urge to scream at her.

Charissa rolled her eyes, but Luna replied before she could say anything, her usual soft voice sounding oddly sharp. 'It is not. It's simply a hereditary ability certain people are born with — much like a metamorphmagus, or an empath, or a Seer. I'm not one myself, but Mummy was—' Huh, hadn't know that. '—and she taught me how to speak it, even though it doesn't work with real snakes. You have to be a natural Parselmouth for that.'

For a second, Charissa considered explaining how, according to Mum, native Parseltongue was actually _white_ magic — technically, all inherited abilities were — but decided against it. That would take too much exposition to be worth the distraction.

'Then what was the point of learning it?' Hermione asked, temporarily distracted by another puzzle.

Luna smiled at her. 'Mummy liked to make it so her voice-keyed enchantments were activated by Parseltongue, so other people couldn't interfere with them. Like this.' She reached out a hand toward Adrienne. ' _Wake. Come_.' The little dragon started moving in its passable imitation of life, even letting out a yawn before getting to its tiny feet. It then stepped onto Luna's hand, crawling up her arm to drape itself around her neck. 'See? Mummy also set the passwords to open locks, or modify our wards, in Parseltongue, as an extra layer of security. Daddy says it was very clever, and worth learning the language for.'

And now Ginny was giving Luna the same look. Great. Trying not to sound too annoyed, Charissa said, 'Look, there is _absolutely nothing wrong_ with being a Parselmouth, okay? It's not _dark magic_ , it's just something that I _am_. Yes, it's gotten a bad reputation in Europe because of a few Parselmouth Dark Lords we've had over the centuries, and I've heard there are some nasty bits of ritual magic you can do with it, but that's not true _everywhere_.'

'Parselmouths are highly revered in Asia,' Luna said, her tone light and helpful. 'Especially in South Asia, where the cobra was once worshipped in a way very similar to how cats were in Egypt, as guardians of home and fighters of disease. Any moral association the talent has is entirely cultural — it's just something certain people can do, nothing more.'

'I had read about that.' Charissa couldn't repress a grin at the familiar academic tone suddenly on Hermione's voice. 'It says in Goshawk's _Eastern Magical Cultures_ that many powerful families, even entire nations, were led by lines of Parselmouths, but while Europeans might assume these individuals Dark Lords or similar, their own people saw them as protectors and healers. And in Bagshot's _Suppression: The American Resistance Against the Statute of Secrecy_ , she says when Parselmouths first reached Mesoamerica, they were thought to be messengers from certain members of the native pantheon. A misconception some Parselmouths abused, though they apparently did their best to police themselves, and were only rarely accused of dark magic.'

And now Ginny was looking at Hermione like she were completely crazy.

'Gin,' Gwyneira said, her voice soft. 'Really. It's nothing to worry about. I've known Charissa my whole life, and I've seen her talk to snakes plenty of times.' Not that many, really, since Charissa tried to avoid them, but she didn't bother clarifying. And, well, Ginny had known her just as long — though admittedly not as well — so this extreme of a reaction was really kind of silly in the first place. 'She's never done anything bad, you _know_ that, and I trust her just fine. So, sit back down? Please?'

Ginny stared at her for a long moment. Then, with obvious reluctance, she lifted her chair back to its feet, settled in, and immediately focused on the textbook in front of her, fiercely ignoring everyone else.

Well. That could have gone worse. That was that, then.

Seconds after Hermione removed the privacy barrier she'd put up, the conversation done, she cast another one. This one was smaller, the sphere of almost-visible not-light surrounding only the two of them. Leaning in closer toward her, Hermione whispered, 'Why didn't you tell me?'

Charissa winced at the hint of betrayal she heard on her best friend's voice. Okay, apparently that hadn't been that quite yet. 'Well. My mum _did_ tell me not to let anyone know. It won't be very fun for me or the rest of my family if it gets out.'

A glance at Hermione's face — Hermione had leaned in further than she'd thought, she was too close, far too close — showed her that didn't make her feel any better at all. 'You didn't think I would tell anyone.'

Her mouth suddenly dry, Charissa considered for a moment, trying to find the right words. Why did everything have to be so complicated lately? 'Ah, I didn't know you well enough at first, to know whether you would or not. And by the time I did, well...' She shrugged.

'Well what?'

Wow, this was uncomfortable. Not only was the topic of conversation awkward in the first place, but Hermione was far too close to her. She was gradually feeling more and more uncomfortably warm, her pulse rising up into her throat where it really shouldn't be. If she had an easy way to get out of this situation, to flee, _right now_ , she was quite positive she would take it. Which was a ridiculous thought — they shared classes and a dorm room, she wouldn't be able to hide for long at all, and it was a silly thing to do in the first place. She looked away from Hermione's eyes, shrugging again. 'I dunno. I didn't want you to, you know. React like Ginny.'

She heard a shuffling of cloth, a pressure against her arm, then a warm hand enclosing hers where she'd let it drop on the table, an odd tingling running up her arm. She glanced over to see Hermione, still far too close, smiling at her. And she suddenly didn't want to run away anymore. Not that this was better. 'You don't have to worry about that kind of thing. True, I might have been a little wary about it if I hadn't known you yet. But I do, so it doesn't matter. It's just more interesting magic. Okay?'

Charissa had no idea what to say. She wasn't entirely sure she'd even be _able_ to speak right now, with how far her heart was up her throat. So she just nodded.

'Good.' Hermione let go of her, shifting away to sit straighter in her chair. 'And you're teaching me Parseltongue sometime. Luna's father is right, that is a brilliant idea.' Without another word, she removed the privacy barrier, and went back to her Runes work.

Charissa waited for the heat to go away, for her heart to return to where it belonged. She wasn't an idiot, she knew what all that weirdness that had been going on with her meant. She'd had her suspicions for a while now. Not that she was entirely sure what to do about it. To be perfectly honest, she _still_ wasn't all that great with just the normal everyday...interpersonal...stuff. She had absolutely no clue what to do. Or even if she _should_ do anything.

Great. She had another awkward thing to talk to her parents—

Her mother. Definitely, _definitely_ her mother. Dad would never stop teasing her.

 _Ever_.

With a sigh, she tried to force those thoughts away, concentrate on her work. And succeeded. Mostly.

* * *

 _October 24th, 1993_

* * *

A worried look on her face, Hermione tentatively passed over today's issue of the _Prophet_. Ignoring the whispers around them, Charissa looked down at the paper, opened to the front page of the society section, and read the headline.

 _ **Heir to House Potter, Charissa Cassiopeia, Parselmou**_ ** _ð_** _ **!**_

Her stomach sinking, her magic rising, she felt like screaming, she felt like starting something on fire, she felt like cursing something, she felt like cursing some _one_. Instead she leaned forward, laying her arms on the table, her face on her arms.

Her father was going to be _so very annoyed_.

She sighed.

* * *

Aþxam (IPA: [əθ.çɑm]) _— I did use this in a previous chapter, but it was a while ago, so I thought I'd put a reminder here. This as contraction in Brīþwn meaning "to (my) mother"_

breþ _— breath, incorrectly spelled on purpose (by me, not Charissa)_

artēs condōnātae _— I'm not sure this term is entirely appropriate. I was going for "permitted arts" but I don't know the use of condōnō well enough to know if this is correct. I don't speak Latin xD_

artēs ātrae _— I used_ ater _instead of_ niger _for "black" on purpose._

[Any spell or ritual that requires an emotional component must be either black or white. There are no exceptions.] _— Yes. Always. Lily isn't mistaken: in this fic, that is an inviolable rule. To pick a few example spells that also appear in canon, the Unforgivables would be black, and the Patronus would be white._

Sylx _— IPA:_ [syɬ.x:]

zḗta _— I know that double-diacritic is a little weird-looking, but the macron is just how the vowel in the original word_ (ζήτα) _is transliterated._

Byzantine _— In reference to the Greek-speaking Roman Empire centered around Constantinople. I was going to use a different word for this, but since they called themselves Romans_ (οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι) _, I decided that would be too confusing._

álfa _— This is alpha. The "ph" in Greek-origin words is from the letter Φ φ ("phi"), which was once pronounced as an aspirated stop (IPA:_ [pʰ] _), but has long since become a fricative (IPA:_ [f] _). In the Byzantine era, it would have been an "f" sound already, so that's what I chose to transliterate it as._

epísēmon _— The Greek letter originally called wau, and later digamma, was used to write a sound mostly identical to our "w" in pre-Classical Greek. By the time all those famous Athenians were around, the sound had long vanished from the language, but the character was still used as the sixth numeral. In Byzantine-era Greek, the numeral ultimately descended from the digamma was usually called epísēmon_ (ἐπίσημον) _, literally meaning something like "distinguishing mark."_

[a pureblood child of any woman in the family] _— Charissa doesn't spell it out, but the children of unmarried Black women are considered legitimate members of the House of Black, regardless of who their fathers are. They get lower priority when it comes to certain things, the title especially, but are otherwise full Blacks. Technically, due to family law shenanigans, Dora is considered one too, hence the ease of Bellatrix challenging her inheritance on her daughter's behalf._

Bartimeus _— Sorry, JKR, you misspelled "Bartimaeus", and it bothers me. The "ae" changed to "e" for orthographic reasons._

[those comments Mum made sometimes about Skýlla and Khárybdis] _— In the Odyssey, the titular hero at one point has to navigate between Skýlla (_ Σκύλλα _, "Scylla"), a variably described chimeric monster-thing, and Khárybdis (_ Χάρυβδις _, "Charybdis"), sometimes depicted as a sea monster and sometimes a whirlpool. This being the Odyssey, it doesn't go too well. Variations on "between Scylla and Charybdis" have entered multiple languages as an idiom similar to "between a rock and a hard place" in meaning._

[parseltongue was actually white magic — technically, all inherited abilities were] _— This is true. What is not clarified is it is the_ _ **acquiring**_ _of such abilities that is white magic, not the_ _ **use**_ _. So, if Charissa were to use too much black magic and lock out her white magic, she would still be a parselmouth. Similarly, Dora would still be a metamorphmaga if the same happened to her. The ability to become an animagus is inherited, but also has to be activated, a process which is_ _ **also**_ _white magic. As long as someone becomes an animagus_ _ **before**_ _they lock themselves into black, they can still use the ability._

* * *

 _For the record, it's safe to assume everything said here about Fae and the nature of magic is particular to this fic, and does not apply to anything else I may write._

 _Until next time  
_ _~Wings_


	14. Nightmare

_December 18th, 1993_

* * *

For the last hour, Bella had been practically latched onto her side. Charissa pretended not to notice how visibly annoyed Hermione was about it.

She could sort of understand why Hermione might be frustrated by her little cousin barging into their compartment during the ride back to London. The two had never gotten along. Bella had a habit of, to put it simply, not being very nice. Charissa had figured out by now that Bella didn't _mean_ it — those sarcastic, teasing insults were just the way she talked, without any active intent to be cruel behind them. If anything, she suspected the way Bella was constantly teasing Hermione just meant she liked her, or at the very least thought her entertaining. Really, there were members of her family who would be much, _much_ worse to Hermione. Unsurprisingly, she thought, since of all the people in their compartment Bella was the only other person raised by muggles — Jas was off somewhere with some of her year mates — which was _certainly_ not a common occurrence in Charissa's extended family.

She also had a suspicion that there was a more selfish angle to Hermione's aggravation as well. Usually, Hermione had Charissa's attention all to herself. She was well aware she was quite possibly the only person in the whole castle — with the probable exception of Luna, she guessed — who would actually _listen_ to Hermione when she went on one of her random, lengthy rants. Sometimes she would end up in a conversation with Neville or Susan, usually about some duelling-related thing, sometimes with Morag, when she absolutely insisted Charissa sit still long enough to listen to some piece of gossip or another, sometimes with Jas, giving advice related to one of his classes or explaining some of the cultural things he still hadn't picked up yet. But if she wasn't distracted by one of them, her time almost entirely belonged to Hermione. She couldn't count the number of times they'd followed so many tangents during one of their virtually nightly (mostly academic) conversations that she'd completely lost track of what they'd been talking about to start with.

So, she guessed she could understand why Hermione had been growing increasingly annoyed with the demands Bella — and the Gaunt twins, actually — have been making for her attention. It made a fair amount of sense.

It just wasn't particularly welcome today of all days. Hermione didn't know Bella well enough to notice how unusually quiet and tense she was. Didn't know her well enough to understand what was waiting for her on the platform in London had her terrified half out of her mind.

So Charissa dealt with the added tension in the compartment, trying not to let on that it was bothering her.

Thankfully, the ride down to London was rather short. She had long been positive the rail line connecting London and Hogsmeade didn't pass linearly through space. For one thing, trying to keep this thing hidden from muggles, even when it wasn't being used, would be an exercise in futility. She'd noticed before that the ride to Hogsmeade the first day of a school year and the ride back on the last were much longer than the same trip at any other time — roughly six hours compared to maybe two. She wasn't entirely sure how that worked. The view outside the windows was largely the same, seeming to pass at the same, consistent speed. She never consciously noticed any repeats or discontinuities in the constant scrolling of countryside. By this point, she was almost convinced what they saw out of the windows every time wasn't actually Britain in the strictest sense, but a place both here and not here, or simply an illusion. She really didn't know.

And she guessed it didn't matter so much. Just interesting to think about.

Before too long, the train was coming to a stop. As usual, they waited in their compartment for a couple minutes after the outside doors opened, giving the halls time to clear a little. Upon stepping onto the platform, it was maybe only five seconds before someone was abruptly taking her into a hug, itching tingles of discomfort immediately shooting across her skin. 'Hello, sweetheart,' an extremely familiar voice said just above her ear.

For maybe six seconds, Charissa was extremely confused. She carefully watched the woman as she let go, pulled away a little. Took in the soft red hair, the thin lips, the angle her little nose made with her cheekbones, the bright green eyes, complete with hardly-noticeable lines of exhaustion around them that were such a constant for as long as Charissa could remember she'd be hard to recognise without them. Her height, the proportion of her limbs were exactly correct. Everything Charissa was _seeing_ told her she was looking at her own mother right now. But everything she was _feeling_ suggested there was something fundamentally wrong going on here. She couldn't even say how, had little to do with the fact that she hadn't expected Mum to be here in the first place. It was such a vague impression she couldn't quite put words to it.

She came to the obvious conclusion a bit embarrassingly slowly. 'Dora, what are you doing?'

The very familiar face twisted in a completely uncharacteristic pout — uncharacteristic of Mum, anyway, but one that fit Dora perfectly. 'I thought I had it perfect! I even worked really hard to get the voice right.' Even as Dora talked, her features shifted rounder, eyes brightening to blue, hair shortening and shifting pink as it went. She stayed mostly the same height and shape though — Charissa guessed she'd probably borrowed (or stolen) some of Mum's clothes for the occasion. 'How'd you know?'

Just that second, Charissa finally put her finger on one of the things that had tipped her off. 'You hugged me.'

Dora gave her a really weird look at that. 'Lily hugs you all the time.'

'Yes, but she always gives me the opportunity to refuse it if I'm not in the mood.' Sometimes, Charissa really didn't feel like being randomly manhandled by people, but Mum had been mostly good about respecting that for as long as she could remember — with occasional exceptions, but mostly. That wasn't the only reason Charissa had seen through Dora's little disguise, but it was the reason she could actually explain. She didn't think it would make very much sense for her to just say Dora hadn't _felt_ right.

'Well, no fun.' Dora's eyes flicked to Bella, who was staring at her with an especially pronounced look of bafflement on her face. 'You'd be my new baby cousin, then.'

For long seconds, Bella just stared at her. Charissa could almost feel the tension in her, holding back her impulse to say something sarcastic. As long as it was Dora, she could probably go right on ahead — it was doubtful she would care at all, no matter what Bella could possibly think to say — but Charissa didn't think this the best time to point that out. Finally, Bella muttered, 'I guess,' sounding thoroughly unexcited by the prospect.

Dora seemed a little disappointed with the lack of enthusiasm, but she visibly shook it off. 'Well. Let me go track down my mother quick and we can get going.' And she was gone.

Almost instantly, Bella said, 'She sounds a lot less weird in writing.'

Charissa couldn't help chuckling a little at that. She was about to say something, about how you got used to her or something like that, when Hermione, standing at her other side, suddenly spoke. 'Anyway, I think I'm going to go find my parents now. You still coming over on the twenty-fourth?'

It took her very best effort not to wince at the reminder. Most citizens of magical Britain, for obvious reasons, did not observe Christmas. There was an official holiday on the Solstice — the twentieth or twenty-first, depending on exactly how the calendar worked out that year — which was generally as important as Christmas was with muggles. She knew a fair amount _about_ Christmas, probably more than most who didn't have immediate muggle relatives, bits and pieces Mum had told her over the years. But they'd never really done anything for it. This year, though, all the Potters were going to visit the Palmers' on the twenty-fifth, and Charissa had even been invited to the Grangers' the evening before. She anticipated both days to be extremely uncomfortable.

But she just nodded. Smiling brilliantly, Hermione said goodbye, gave her a quick hug, then dashed off.

Charissa studiously ignored the look Bella was giving her.

It hardly took thirty seconds for Dora to reappear, practically dragging Aunt Andi by the hand. Charissa wondered to herself how old Dora would be before she stopped acting like a child. Before too long, Andi was standing here with them, she and Bella staring at each other. Charissa knew the two had written a fair number of letters back and forth over the last couple months, but they'd never actually met in person. Now that they were standing right next to each other, Charissa noticed instantly they looked remarkably alike — she figured in thirty years Bella wouldn't look much different than Andi did now. Which wasn't so surprising, considering Bella's mother was Andi's sister, Bella's father her third cousin (she was pretty sure third), and most of the Noble Houses were dangerously inbred to begin with.

Sounding incredibly awkward already, shifting in place a little, Bella said in a near groan, 'Quit looking at me like that.'

Andi started out of the slight daze she'd been in there for a second, blinking to herself. 'Ah, I'm sorry. Just having a moment there. You look so much like your mother did at your age I was having a nostalgia moment.'

'Yes,' Bella said, rolling her eyes, 'from what I'm told, the Noble Houses have been marrying their own cousins long enough I'm sure I look like a lot of people.'

Charissa did her best to stifle a snort of laughter, but it still ended up distractingly loud anyway. She couldn't help it — she'd privately thought nearly the exact same thing not four seconds ago. 'Right. If you'll excuse me, I'll just be flooing home then. I have enough awkward moments already planned over break.' Bella wasn't even trying to hide her smirk at that. A few seconds later she'd said her goodbyes, and stalked off for the row of public floos just off the platform, trying to put her concern about how Bella would handle winter break with the Tonkses — or how they would handle her, for that matter — firmly out of her mind.

Even as green flame swirled around, it belatedly struck her. Those weird looks Bella had been giving her and Hermione, the occasional knowing smirks here and there. She had a sudden suspicion Bella was perfectly aware of how Charissa had been feeling about Hermione lately.

She let out a sigh as she stepped into her living room. She could just imagine Bella was going to be intentionally difficult about that. Should anything come of it, that is. Oh, well. At least she hadn't said anything.

As far as she knew.

 _Yet_.

* * *

 _December 19th, 1993_

* * *

When Charissa abruptly started to full consciousness, the first thing she noticed was it was still dark out, the world out her window yet perfectly black with only the barest hints of moonlight. The second thing she noticed was that that old tee shirt she usually wore to bed in the winter was gone, sheets and blanket pulled back, bare skin her waist up exposed to the slightly chilly air. That was weird. The third thing she noticed was that her wrists were pulled up and back, sitting at either side of her pillow a bit above her head, far enough her knuckles draped over the small gap between mattress and bed frame. She couldn't move them — her hands were held there by what was obviously a spell, though she couldn't feel what kind at the moment. That was a little alarming.

The fourth thing she noticed was that it wasn't just her arms she couldn't move. She couldn't move at all. She could still breathe, point her eyes, shift her head a few degrees. She didn't think she was paralysed — trying to move her leg, she felt a pressure against the front just above the knee, the back just above the ankle. Like some spell were simply holding her perfectly in place.

It wasn't until she heard her own breath rasping heavily in her ears that she realised she was panicking a little. Which was a perfectly reasonable response to this situation, she thought, but not a _helpful_ one. So she closed her eyes, concentrated on regaining control of her own traitorous lungs, spending long seconds, then minutes, just breathing slowly, in and out. She wouldn't be able to do anything about whatever was happening if she were too busy panicking.

Assuming she'd be able to do anything about it at all. This wasn't exactly an advantageous position she was in here.

After some minutes, she wasn't sure how many, she heard a voice float across the air. It was high and soft, so light it was hardly above a whisper, with rather exaggerated fluctuations in pitch, as though the speaker's native language used tone much more actively, enough for some of the patterns to be second nature. 'Sorry about the delay, there. Nearly forgot about your little Touched pet. Sneaky thing almost managed to warn your mother before I caught it.'

It took her a couple seconds to put together what the woman, who she still couldn't see, was talking about. More than a touch of her earlier panic on her voice, she said, 'What did you do to Augí?' Apparently, she could also move her mouth.

'So concerned for your little pet, Potter?' The stranger let out a short, breathy chuckle. 'Don't worry yourself over that, little girl, I only put it to sleep. I'm not here to hurt anyone or anything.' In a lower mutter, as though giving voice to an afterthought, 'Not permanently, anyway.'

Charissa turned toward the side of the bed the last sentence had sounded from, lips forming the first syllable of a question. Which she promptly forgot about the moment she laid eyes on the intruder, all but the basest of thoughts instantly chased away by the icy chill racing up her spine. She knew what that was.

 _What_ , because the woman wasn't human at all. Not even close. Her skin was black, impossibly black. Not the sort of black some humans had, but a more pure, absolute colour, like the darkness between the stars, showing not even the slightest sheen of oil, the thinnest line, hardly even any depth. The white scleræ and bright, red-orange irises made an almost painful contrast against the void. Her head was shaped almost disturbingly _off_ , as though someone had grabbed the top of her head and her chin and pulled until it was all too long and narrow, just barely enough to be unnerving. The hair above and around the alien face, spilling around narrow shoulders — each strand seeming unusually heavy, each perhaps five times the thickness they should be — was an unnatural-looking blue-purple, a soft, oddly bright colour that almost seemed to shine in the darkness very dimly, just at the edge of visibility. The colour matched the clothes she wore, simple trousers and a tunic draped over one shoulder, stitched in gold here and there with foreign, twisting patterns.

Charissa had only been studying the Fae for half a school year now, but she still knew what this woman was. Hers was one of the very first species they'd covered. They were properly called Ðīɬ Dīvy in Brīþwn, but usually referred to by the Nordic-influenced term black elves. Charissa didn't know a whole lot about them — no human did, really. But she knew black elves were one of the twenty-eight species of Elder Fae, solidly aligned with the Court of the Earth, if she remembered correctly. But those details weren't all that important right now. She had a much more pressing matter to attend to.

There was an Elder Fae in her bedroom.

There was an _Elder Fae_ in _her bedroom_.

As her heart started pounding painfully in her throat, a snarky little part of her in the back of her mind thought, _This is quite possibly the worst thing I have ever woken up to_.

The Fae woman — Charissa was pretty sure this was a woman — gave her what seemed to be an almost exasperated look. At least, she thought so — it was hard to tell with how absolutely black her features were, not enough contrast to make out the details properly, and she guessed it was possible Fae didn't have the same facial expressions anyway. 'There's no reason to be so afraid, little girl. I already said I wasn't planning on hurting anyone.'

Charissa took a few seconds, warily watching the elf as she drifted closer toward the side of her bed, to try to get herself under control. She thought she did a decent job, but her voice still came out too fast and tight. 'If you woke up one night to find yourself stripped and bound to your bed, what would you think?'

The woman cocked her head to the side a little, the gesture oddly avian. 'Think? I daresay I wouldn't _think_ anything at all. Whoever would dare violate my sanctuary I would kill without hesitation.'

Oh, well, _of course_ she would.

'I'm not sure you would do much different if you could. Fortunately—' She lifted a knee high, placing one foot on Charissa's bed, pushed herself to standing above, the mattress dipping with her weight a little less than Charissa would have expected. '—you aren't even close to a threat to me.'

Charissa was starting to lose control of her breathing again, struggling ineffectually at the spell holding her. A tide of terror was rising in her head, making it almost impossible to think, and that would be _bad_ , she had to stay focused, she needed to be aware enough to take advantage of any opportunity that might present itself. Not that she believed any opportunity _would_ prevent itself. Or that trying to take advantage of it would really do her any good. She whimpered at the thought, tried to fight it off, tried to _stay focused_.

'Good,' the Fae woman said with her musical voice, a glint of white teeth visible past her black lips twisted into a smile. 'Your position is completely hopeless, but you refuse to give up. Very good.' The elf took a step closer to her across the bed, then lifted one foot over her, to the other side — Charissa absently noticed she wasn't wearing any shoes, black skin open to the air — so she was standing directly above Charissa, staring down at her with her burning eyes, one foot to her left and the other to her right.

Then, in one smooth, graceful motion, the Fae sank to the bed, coming to rest straddling her hips. Charissa reflexively tried to jerk away, to escape from the alien, impossibly powerful being on top of her, the intruder who had her completely at her mercy, but she couldn't move an inch. The elf wasn't even jostled a little bit. Charissa couldn't help herself but to let out another little whimper, immediately followed with curses whispered under her breath, temporarily not caring if the woman might take offense.

But, she didn't. In fact, the elf just smiled at her again. Smiled rather wide, actually — wide enough for Charissa to see her teeth were a bit different as well, longer, narrower, and pointier. Charissa shuddered at the sight. 'It still amuses me how some of you British swear by Muirgen.' The elf put a finger to Charissa's collarbone, slowly dragging down to over her heart. The Fae's touch sent her to shivering, the swirling maelstrom of life and magic contained within reverberating through the contact into Charissa's chest, all along her nerves throughout her body. She tore her eyes away, staring over at a wall, biting her lip to hold back her moan of...well, something completely inappropriate to the situation and was really rather embarrassing. Stupid magic. 'She has a real name, but an epithet she gained a long time ago is rather similar to the one Celtic humans gave her. Stormbreather, I believe I would translate it. She's one of us, you see — in fact, a descendant of mine.'

Her eyes snapped over to the elf, but before she could even say anything to that, she was soundly interrupted. The woman lifted her hand again and, with a flick of her wrist, some foreign magic overwhelmed her. Fae magic again ran through her body in a single pulse, but this time a tingling pain, as electricity running down every fiber of her being. Not _extremely_ painful, but it definitely hurt, enough Charissa couldn't help but release something between a gasp and a cry. She was temporarily dazzled by orange light, filling the space between her chest and the elf's hand. Her eyes eventually adjusted, revealing it wasn't a simple, undifferentiated light — the glowing space was made of thousands of little orange motes, interspersed with twisting, curving shapes. Writing. She thought it was writing, some Fae script she'd never seen before. The elf was performing some sort of runic magic on her. She could feel it grow, a hot tightness starting on the skin just over her heart, slowly expanding along her arteries and nerves, growing across and into her body. It didn't hurt, not exactly, but she still found herself blinking tears out of her eyes, her throat tightening with an unvoiced scream.

'I am giving you a gift,' the Fae woman said over the harsh noise of Charissa's shuddering breaths, 'Charissa Cassiopeia Augusta of House Potter. One we do not give often, certainly to humans. I will not bother explaining exactly what it is — I'll be modifying your memory once I'm done, so you won't be remembering this conversation anyway.' The orange light was shifting shade, one mote after the next gradually turning from orange to a blinding, piercing blue, as the power invading her chest grew, stinging, shivering, burning. 'And though you won't remember, I feel the need to say this much.

'What I am giving you, human child, is very valuable. Many among those you call you Lesser Fae would give their lives to taste it — some do, devoting themselves in service to the Clan of the one who Blessed them. I am asking very little, really.' Charissa thought the elf might be smiling again, but she couldn't see, the blue light in her watery eyes washing away all else. 'There are all sorts of plans, you see, plans my people have for yours. I wish to— What is that delightful idiom your mundane cousins have, "throw a spanner in the works"? I wish to throw a spanner in the works.'

Charissa felt another overwhelming touch on her chest, what she realised after a second was the elf pressing her hand against her, fingers and palm with power dancing around setting all of her to shuddering, magic pulsing from one end of her body to the other again and again, always coming back to her heart, a blazing focus of building energy. 'You, little girl, are going to be my spanner. Do try to make it interesting.'

That was the last coherent thing Charissa knew. The very next moment, the magic inverted, piercing into her like violent lightning, coursing through her body, her mind, her soul, scorching her and soothing her, destroying her and nurturing her, a cacophony of embracing power and unbearable agony so deep within her there was absolutely no way to avoid it.

She couldn't even hear herself screaming.

* * *

Charissa started up to sitting in bed with a suddenness born of terror.

Her mouth was dry, her throat ached, her breaths, harsh and fast with panic painful on parched flesh. She was absolutely drenched in cold sweat, her shirt heavy with it against her skin. The air in her room, the house colder than usual in winter as Mum preferred it, started stealing the moisture immediately, quickly setting her to shivering. Her heart thundered hard and rapid, enough her chest ached. She absently rubbed the skin over the overworked organ with one hand, the other wiping at her eyes, as she tried to force down the lingering traces of temporary madness.

A nightmare. She must have had a nightmare. She didn't have those very often, not since she'd been very young. She didn't remember a single detail of it, not even a vague impression remaining — but, then, she usually didn't remember her dreams anyway.

After a moment spent collecting herself, she started when Augí jumped into the gap between her splayed legs, immediately rubbing himself against her stomach. Charissa reached down to scratch between his ears almost reflexively, a sigh on her voice. 'I don't know how you can stand doing that right now,' she muttered in an oddly weak, hoarse voice. 'I'm so sweaty and gross.'

When Augí responded, it wasn't in words, not exactly. More an impression of emotion and intent working across the magic connecting them, inserting itself into her own thoughts. Augí preferred it when she was _sweaty and gross_. He didn't like all the soaps and things humans used, making them smell not at all like themselves. And besides, even if he didn't, like her smelling bad would keep him away at all. He was around humans who smelled bad all the time with little complaint, and those people he didn't even like.

Charissa snorted at him. Silly cat. 'You might not mind, but I think I want to take a shower. I think it's almost morning anyway, so I might as well get up.'

Augí gave a little shuddering sniff at her. With one last rub of his soft white head against her side he hopped away, and disappeared into the predawn darkness.

Charissa lifted herself from bed on shaky limbs, gathered clothes to put on after cleaning up. She stumbled out into the rest of the house, one hand still rubbing at the sore patch of skin on her chest, putting all thoughts of her forgotten nightmare behind her, turning toward the day to come.

* * *

[She didn't think it would make very much sense for her to just say Dora hadn't _felt_ right.] — _As a short form explanation, Charissa can semiconsciously feel the souls and minds of people around her (actually something all the more powerful magical beings are capable of, whether they're fully aware of it or not). Dora, of course, hadn't copied_ _ **that**_ _. But this isn't something Charissa is entirely conscious of, so she didn't even know how to explain the feeling of wrongness coherently._

Ðīɬ Dīvy (IPA: [ðyɬ dy.βɨ], roughly "theesh **dee** -vuh") — _Debated for a long time what to call them, before deciding to keep it simple and go with literally "black people"_ xD

[—the Nordic-influenced term black elves.] — _The Nordic-native concept implied here are Dökkálfar, which is usually translated dark elves. There are literal black elves, or Svartálfar, but they're usually considered a somewhat different concept. Elf is actually an extremely generic term in Germanic mythology, sort of like the Celtic concept modern stories of Fae are based on._

[(Muirgen is) one of us, you see — in fact, a descendant of mine.] — _She's not lying. That's all I have to say on that right now._

* * *

 _Was that actual plot that just happened? No way! And it only took fourteen chapters! And, before anyone asks, no, I'm not going to explain what that random Fae just did until Charissa herself learns. Which will be a little while yet._

 _Until next time,  
_ _~Wings_


	15. An Uncomfortable Christmas Eve

_December 23rd, 1993_

* * *

When Charissa finally worked up the courage to talk to her mother, she then had to _find_ her. She was pretty sure she was home — Mum had this whole week off — unless she had gone off to visit Severus or Alice or something. She first checked her parents' bedroom, to see if she was in there catching up on sleep, and then the library, before finding her the third place she'd looked: their warded duelling platform outside.

Mum was standing in the middle of the pentagonal space, wearing only simple trousers and a thin sleeveless shirt against the winter cold. But, judging by how the snow within a few meters of the platform had been sublimated away, revealing the dry grass beneath, she probably didn't need anything else. Charissa had caught her halfway through runic casting, a thick jumble of glowing signs already suspended in the air before her as she continued to trace more, so she hung back a bit. Finally, Mum drew the last of what looked to be dozens of runes, activating the magic with a flick of her wrist. In a flash of motion, an overwhelming rush of power Charissa could feel through the barriers separating them, a piercingly-bright torrent of orange flame splashed against the wardline in front of her, then rapidly expanded, the fiery explosion consuming the entire platform. For a few seconds, all Charissa could see was orange-white fire, formed into an approximate hemisphere by the wards containing them.

Charissa wasn't the least bit concerned, though. She was sure her mother wouldn't be so stupid as to hurt herself when practising something. Sure enough, when the flames died away, there Mum was, standing completely untouched in the middle of the platform, a slight frown on her face. 'Is that not what you were going for?'

Mum's eyes flicked over to her, and a trace of a smile started pulling at the corners of her lips. 'Yes, it was. Maybe a little weaker than I wanted, but about right.' Charissa found the thought that that impressive of a wandlessly-cast spell wasn't powerful enough for her mother amusing. 'I've been trying to cut down how long it takes to cast, though, and it's still too long.'

'What's it for?'

Mum shrugged, taking a few steps toward the edge of the pentagon. 'It should take down most wards. Not some of the more complex schemes, like Hogwarts or the Ministry have, but most. I had to modify these—' She reached out a finger to the wardline, a pulse of electric blue running across the surface as her skin touched. '—with a rather complicated flame-repelling charm just to hold it in.'

Oh, of course. Mum had created a spell she thought she could bring down most wards with, just with a single casting. From the look of it, it took maybe thirty seconds to cast. And she was worried that _wasn't quick enough_.

Sometimes, it occurred to her that her mother was kind of scary.

'Anyway.' Mum stepped through the wardline — and then immediately hugged her arms around herself, shoulders hitching up a bit, as though suddenly realising it was cold out. 'Did you need something?'

'I had something I needed to ask you about.'

Before Charissa could even get anything further out, a pained sort of expression flashed across Mum's face. She tried not to react to that at all. 'Let's go inside first.'

A moment later, Charissa was sitting at the kitchen table, Mum going about getting tea ready. Silently, completely avoiding looking at Charissa. Which was really starting to bother her. She had absolutely no idea where this sudden unwillingness to be talking to her was coming from. Mum had always been perfectly nice whenever she needed anything before. She couldn't help wondering if something had happened. She couldn't think of anything it could be. She'd apologised for screwing up, letting her being a Parselmouth get out, but Mum had told her not to worry about it, it was fine. She couldn't really think of anything else that had happened recently.

Eventually, she just couldn't take it anymore. Trying not to sound too uncomfortable about it, she asked, 'Is something wrong?'

Leaning against the counter with both hands, Mum let out a heavy sigh. 'I just don't want to be dealing with this right now.'

That was confusing on multiple levels. For one, Charissa had absolutely no idea how Mum had figured out what this conversation was going to be about. She hadn't thought she'd been being obvious about it — at least, she guessed, not until recently, if Bella probably figuring it out was any indication. And for another...she really hadn't expected this to be a topic Mum would have a problem with. She didn't get it. But she muttered, 'I'm sorry,' anyway.

'Not your fault. I expected your brothers would probably tell you something, and that you'd have concerns. And I guess you have every right to know at least a little bit, so I won't refuse to talk about it. I really just don't want to.' Looking distinctly uncomfortable, and very tired — but, then, she almost always looked tired — Mum sat across from her, sliding a cup her way.

For a second, Charissa was very confused. She knew both her brothers were away at the moment — Linden at the Longbottoms' and Perry the Fawleys' — and she had absolutely no idea what they had to do with this. Then it abruptly occurred to her: she and her mother weren't thinking about the same topic at all. 'What are you talking about?'

Mum's face settled into a confused frown, staring at her over her tea. She hesitated a second before saying, 'I've been sleeping in the library. I assumed the boys told you. What are _you_ talking about?'

Charissa just stared at her mother. Mum had been sleeping in the library? As in, _not_ in her bed with Dad? Consistently? She had absolutely no idea what to think about that. She'd found Mum in there one morning a couple days ago, passed out on the sofa, but she'd just assumed that'd been a one-time occurrence. That she'd gotten home late and hadn't wanted to wake him up, something like that. Her brothers _hadn't_ told her that. Though, now that she thought about it, Perry had been a little quieter than usual, but she hadn't thought that relevant at the time. After a couple seconds of confusion, she managed to find her voice again. 'Why?'

With a slight, awkward shrug, Mum said, 'We're having a disagreement at the moment. It's nothing to worry about. If that's not what you wanted to talk about, what is?'

Charissa wasn't entirely convinced it wasn't anything to worry about. But she was pretty sure she didn't want to press the issue. Despite what Mum had said a second ago, about her having every right to know, she didn't think it was exactly her business. She wasn't entitled to know the details of her parents' personal lives just because she was their daughter. At least, not in her opinion. And, well, she wasn't entirely sure she _wanted_ to know whatever it was. She'd been too young to understand what was going on at the time, but she'd figured out by now that Dad had had an affair some years ago — she thought maybe more than one, but she obviously didn't know the details. And while her mother was quite possibly her favourite person on the planet, Charissa could see how she could maybe be a bit, er, difficult to deal with? Not entirely sure how to word what she meant.

And, to be perfectly honest, she wasn't sure she wanted to know just how bad things were between her parents at the moment either. Say, for instance, things went along something of a worst-case scenario, and her parents suddenly split up, harshly enough they could hardly tolerate being in the same room anymore — Charissa doubted very much that was what was about to happen, but just as a thought. If that _were_ to happen, she wasn't sure having any degree of warning would, well, make it any easier? It just be an extra thing to worry about until it actually happened. And, no, whatever argument they were in the middle of right now, she didn't think her parents splitting up any time soon was likely. It was possible she was speaking from ignorance, she would admit, but that was her impression. They'd fought before, she knew that, they always got over it. So there was really no point in asking about what was going on. Or even really thinking about it at all.

'It's, erm.' Charissa's eyes slipped away to look at the wall, her fingers brushing her cup in random little strokes. 'I just have something going on and I'm not sure what to do about it. Or even if I should do anything at all.'

Mum just raised an eyebrow at her, asking-without-asking her to elaborate.

Charissa considered a moment, then pulled out her wand, quickly cast a simple charm designed to detect any nearby beings — nope, they were alone in the house. Good. Mum was giving her a weird look now, but Charissa just shrugged at her before saying, 'There's sort of a girl I think I'm maybe developing something of a fancy for.'

She wasn't entirely sure how she thought her mother would react to that. What she _hadn't_ expected was for her lips to twist into an amused half-smirk. 'Even for you, that statement was remarkably noncommittal.'

Charissa just rolled her eyes.

'You are getting to an age where that sort of thing is going to start happening, now, aren't you? Making me feel old, here.' Pretty sure that was a joke. Mum was silent a moment, staring blankly at Charissa as she took a sip from her tea. 'So what exactly did you want me to say here? Not sure what you're looking for.'

'I just don't want to make a mess of it,' Charissa said with a little shrug. 'I mean, this isn't exactly something I've done before. I'm bad at figuring out how people will react if I haven't, you know, seen them react.'

Mum nodded — Charissa had complained to her more than once about not completely understanding people much of the time. 'Fortunately, you don't have to worry about it too much. At least in magical Britain, people are very understanding about this sort of thing. If you flounder a little and make mistakes here or there, well, people mostly expect that, and no one will hold grudges for too unreasonably long — especially, from what I remember, between people your age. Unless something especially dramatic happens, anyway, but generally people are good about it.'

It didn't escape her notice that Mum had specified _magical_ Britain. She couldn't help assuming that was probably meaningful. She hesitated a moment, trying to decide exactly how to word her question, how much to give away.

But Mum got all she needed quickly enough. 'It's Hermione, isn't it.' It wasn't exactly a question, but Charissa nodded just to confirm. Mum set down her tea, put both elbows on the table, her head falling into her hands. For a few seconds, she was silent, hands firmly rubbing at her face.

Okay. Charissa hadn't exactly expected _that_ either. 'Is there something wrong with Hermione?'

'No, of course not.' Mum leaned back in her chair again, her hands falling away — she looked noticeably more exhausted, her face drawn, than she had just a second ago. 'I quite like Hermione, you know that. It's just, well, her being muggleborn complicates things more than it really should.'

That was perhaps the most confusing thing her mother had ever said to her. She knew why Hermione being muggleborn could be a problem for _other_ people, but that sentence coming out of _her mother_ 's mouth of all people was just so completely strange she had no clue what was happening anymore. 'What does her being muggleborn have to do with it?'

Mum's face instantly tilted into a slightly annoyed cast. 'That's not what I mean. Though, should anything come of this fancy of yours, it's very likely your father and I will have to deal with a few snide comments here and there, that's not what I'm talking about. The problem is muggle culture around here has very different expectations and traditions about this sort of thing and, since she was born into that culture, well, it makes things complicated.'

Of course. Because just _everything_ these days had to be complicated. 'Different how?'

For a few seconds, Mum stared down at her tea in silence, frowning to herself a little. 'Never mind that for the moment. There's something a bit more important you have to figure out first. One of the complicated things about this. See, muggles in a lot of ways are a bit more particular about which sorts of intimate relationships are permissible. And though that has been changing recently, it's been changing irregularly across their society — not everyone feels the same way about it. And one of those things people often have a problem with might make this whole thing very difficult.'

It was starting to really, really bother her how cautiously indirect Mum was being. Trying not to sound too annoyed, she said, 'And what is that thing?'

'Muggles very often have strong objections to intimate relationships involving two people of the same sex.' Mum looked, odd as it sounded, incredibly uncomfortable saying it.

Okay. Now _that_ was the most confusing thing her mother had ever said to her. Two women couldn't get _married_ , of course — at least, not _here_ , they could elsewhere — but that was an entirely different thing. Sirius had gotten some trouble from people over his relationship with Peter, she knew, but that was more because he refused to _also_ consent to a proper marriage than the fact alone that they were involved. The real problem was simply that he wouldn't be producing heirs. And, really, if he'd been born to a different House it was entirely likely no one would have cared at all. She wasn't entirely sure how to respond to the idea that people would have a problem with the very fact of this sort of thing. So, Charissa said the very first thing that came to mind. ' _Why_?'

Still looking a bit uncomfortable, Mum shrugged to herself. 'It's just one of those things. Almost universal to all muggle cultures, actually. At least in the modern day — one could argue the greater tolerance shown by magical cultures is due to them retaining an older system of values that was not preserved among most muggles, but that's not the point. Some are a bit more extreme than others about it. The, ah, I'll say, _source document_ of the Christian religion and a couple others, for example, explicitly calls for people like your uncles Sirius and Peter to be killed, and there are some places in the world where they actually follow that edict or some other equivalent one. That was never so common in Europe, though. Mostly, they would just pretend such people didn't exist, that such relationships simply didn't happen. Which was complete fiction, of course, but people can be rather good at convincing themselves of anything when they want to.'

Charissa had no idea how to respond to that. The idea that anyone would have such a problem with people like her uncles — and a number of other family members, actually — that they would want to _kill_ them, just because of which sex they chose to be intimate with, was such a completely foreign idea that she had absolutely no idea how to process it. It was too strange.

But she didn't have to say anything, her mother still rambling off, as she had a tendency to do. 'Though things have been changing, lately, especially in Western cultures. It's not something people pretend doesn't exist anymore. Not to say everyone is perfectly accepting of the reality — there is a lot of very loud debate on the topic. In some places, any sexual contact between two people of the same sex is simply against the law, but then you have places like the Netherlands, where the muggle States-General is talking about legalising marriage for such couples, the first muggle country to seriously consider it. So, it varies, nation to nation, person to person.

'The _problem_ comes,' Mum said, the slight academic tone she'd taken on fading to just sound uncomfortable again, 'in how _Hermione_ feels about this sort of thing. See, it's not predictable. If this girl you fancied were magical-raised, you'd only have to worry about whether she were interested or not, individually. But since Hermione is muggle-raised, there's this whole added problem of what side of that debate she was raised in.' Her voice turning slow, sounding so awkward Charissa was a little surprised she was still coherent, 'It is entirely _possible_ that, should Hermione come to know how you've been feeling about her, she would be so disgusted she would never want to speak with you again. I don't think it _likely_ , with what little I know of her opinions, but it is _possible_. And that's not even to speak of the additional problems you might have to deal with involving her parents down the line. It's complicated, is what I'm saying.'

Charissa had absolutely no idea what to think about this. It was all just so...strange. She really didn't see how who anyone chose to be involved with was the business of anyone else — anyone else not in a sufficiently close relationship with them, anyway. Well, okay, she _could_ conceive of situations where it could theoretically be relevant to other people, but that was mostly dealing with political strategy between certain powerful families over generations, not something so inconsequential as which gender someone was. So ridiculous. Muggles got all worked up over the strangest things.

It wasn't until she'd sat there for a couple seconds in silence that she realised something potentially important. 'Wait,' she said, frowning to herself, 'you're muggleborn too.'

Mum just shrugged a little. 'I'll admit the idea of intimate relationships between people of the same sex was peculiar to me at first. To me, it was something I had legitimately never heard of before — I didn't know it was a thing that happened. Not until second year, I think, when I caught two sixth-year girls in the middle of some rather enthusiastic snogging. Ran right to Alice to tell her about it. She just said something along the lines of, Well, yes, everyone knows about those two. I made some protest about them both being girls, and Alice just looked at me and said, "And?"' Mum shrugged again. 'Slowly got used to the idea after that. Used to it enough that—' And then Mum broke off, looking suddenly uncomfortable. If anything, even more uncomfortable than she'd been a few seconds ago.

But the context made Charissa far too curious to just let that go. 'What?'

Was... Was her mother _blushing_? Charissa was pretty sure she was. It was barely noticeable, just the slightest pinking to her face, but it was there. Weird. 'It's entirely possible that, a number of times during fourth year, your Aunt Alice and I got a little, ah, wrapped up in each other.'

Charissa could only blink. She had absolutely no idea how to react to that.

Mum rambled on, still not looking at Charissa, her eyes pointing vaguely down toward where the wall met the floor. 'It wasn't really serious or anything, and only during fourth year, but it did happen. Alice still prefers women, actually. Her marriage to Frank was arranged. She consented to it, of course, and they get along just fine, but he certainly wouldn't have been her first choice. And neither of them make any secret of the fact that at any given time they both have a couple women they are, ah, close with, if you follow my meaning. Sometimes the same women, don't ask me how that works.'

Charissa still wasn't entirely sure what to think. Not about that last part — it was not at all uncommon for people in arranged marriages to have a paramour or two on the side, she'd been exposed to that plenty of times before. She'd rather liked one of Aunt Narcissa's, actually. She was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that her mother and her aunt had once been involved. That was...strange. True, they weren't _blood_ family — they were only related by way of _two_ marriages, and even then not closely (Uncle Frank was Dad's third cousin). But that didn't change how, when Charissa'd been younger, Alice had quite literally always been around. She was probably the aunt Charissa had seen the most of. She thought Andi might be a close second, but definitely second. Which, she guessed, made it _feel_ like they were more closely related than they really were. So...it was weird.

But that wasn't really important right now. Because muggles just had to be silly about things, she potentially had a whole Hermione-related problem to deal with. Obviously, she hadn't had enough to be getting on with already. 'So, it's going to be complicated, you say. What's your advice, then?'

'Well.' Mum's eyes flicked back to her, her awkward grimace turning into a slightly crooked smile. 'I think this is one of those situations where you should practise channeling that inner Slytherin of yours.'

Before she could even attempt to stop herself, she said, 'But I've been really trying _not_ to do that.'

Mum just smirked at her.

* * *

 _December 24th, 1993_

* * *

Hermione was trying not to pace in front of the fireplace. But she found she really couldn't manage to concentrate on anything else. So she ended up just sitting on the sofa, picking absently at her skirt, trying not to seem too nervous — Dad had already given her a couple teasing glances and she tried to avoid those whenever she could.

What had possessed her to invite Charissa over for Christmas Eve, anyway? It had all been so sudden. They'd been talking about their plans for over the holidays. Charissa had mentioned she'd be spending Christmas Day with Jas's family, but that she really didn't know much about Christmas, had only the vaguest impressions what it was about, what _muggles_ did for it. (Hermione was really starting to not like that word.) The next thing Hermione had known, she was suggesting she could ask her parents if Charissa could come over for Christmas Eve. While she would always go to her grandparents' on Christmas itself with her seemingly endless extended family — they alternated _which_ grandparents they visited year to year, which meant half the time they celebrated Christmas in France, but this year was with her English side, so they were still in the country — Christmas Eve was usually just with her parents. They'd usually catch a quick service at a nearby church (really the only time they ever went), eat a quiet dinner just the three of them, open presents (some shipped in from whichever side of the family they wouldn't be seeing the next day) with one documentary or another playing on the telly in the background. Even to this day, she still associated Sir Attenborough's voice with Christmas to a probably absurd degree. It was frankly a bit strange to think Charissa would be here for all of that. And she couldn't imagine Charissa would be any more comfortable with it than Hermione was.

This was such a weird idea. She had no idea what she'd been thinking. Not that she was entirely _opposed_ to Charissa being around. She did still see Charissa plenty over breaks — that Floo connection was quite handy — but she did end up missing her, when one or the other was busy with something else, or when Hermione was off in France. She'd never really had a best friend before these last couple years. Or even friends at all, to be honest. And it was nice. New, and sometimes a bit distracting and confusing, but nice.

But she was worried inviting her over for Christmas Eve had maybe been a bit much.

She suddenly thought of something that somehow hadn't occurred to her until just now: had Charissa ever even _been_ in a church before? She honestly doubted it.

And now she was really starting to wish Charissa would just get here already. She was starting to drive herself mildly crazy, sitting here silently, her own silly thoughts buzzing back and forth in her head. If Charissa didn't get here soon, Hermione would probably think herself into a complete—

The fireplace suddenly burst into life, flames a bright green that still struck her as subtly _wrong_.

—oh, thank God.

After a short delay, Charissa was stepping out of the grate, crouched a little awkwardly to accommodate the shorter fireplace. And for a couple seconds, as Charissa pulled out her wand to deal with the slightest dusting of ash clinging to her (Lady Potter, worried enemies of their family might hurt Hermione's, had placed some minimal wards on the house over the summer, the same lines preventing the Ministry from detecting the wards hiding magic cast inside), Hermione could only blink at her. Charissa was wearing a _dress_. A rather simple thing a deep reddish colour, elbow length sleeves leaving her forearms bear — though, from where her wand had appeared, Hermione was sure the usual invisible holster was still there — the smooth skirt falling lightly to halfway down her shins, revealing flat-bottomed boots Hermione knew were dragonskin, Hebridean Black — though a non-magical would probably pass them off as snakeskin or something, maybe even simple leather, so faint the scaled pattern was — a black sleeveless pullover running from her hips nearly up to her throat. Charissa almost always kept her hair tied back, but now it was let loose, black curls hugging her shoulders, falling nearly to the small of her back, somehow longer than Hermione had thought it was.

Charissa looked perfectly nice, sure, but that wasn't what was leaving Hermione so, well, _confused_. Had she _ever_ seen Charissa in a dress before? She _always_ wore trousers, even under her Hogwarts robes. At least, when she actually wore proper clothes under her robes — Hermione knew she sometimes kept just to her underthings on hotter days. She was pretty sure Charissa didn't wear skirts and dresses and things. At all. _Ever_. The sight frankly struck her as more than a little weird.

By now Charissa was looking back at her, her face pulled into a slight frown. 'What?'

Hermione decided to just come out and say it. 'You're wearing a _dress_.'

With an uncomfortable grimace, Charissa made an awkward little shrug. 'Yeah, well, Mum sort of said I should. Something about muggle dress codes and all that. I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the details. Was too busy vetoing most of her suggestions.' She delicately pinched at the skirt of her dress with a finger and a thumb, as though so disgusted with the thing she didn't want to touch it even more than that. 'I don't even own things like this. This is one of Dora's old things, transfigured a little bit to fit me.'

'That doesn't really surprise me.'

Her face still twisted in a distinct impression of distaste, Charissa said, 'I look ridiculous, I know.'

'No, not at all,' Hermione said, immediately and without thinking — and possibly a little more forcefully than was really necessary. 'I was just surprised is all. It's not your usual thing. But really, you're being silly, you look great. You always look great. Sort of unfair, really,' she added in a grumble.

She noticed Charissa's lips twitching slightly, but she replied only with an almost artful shrug.

And, before even another second could pass, Mum was walking into the room, followed shortly afterward by Dad, and the conversation completely ran away from Hermione. There was a bit of her parents welcoming Charissa, a quick handshake from each — which Charissa looked slightly awkward with; Hermione knew shaking hands wasn't really a thing magical people did, outside of a few very specific contexts — Charissa demurely thanking them for having her over, all smooth and graceful. Of course, Charissa had slipped into what Hermione sort of thought of as her public face the second Mum had appeared, so that was completely expected.

At times, it really bothered her how effortlessly elegant Charissa could seem. It wasn't the juxtaposition of that sort of bearing with her age that was the problem — though it did still seem a bit odd for a _thirteen-year-old girl_ to have the sort of poise she assumed so easily. It was just the fact that, well, it honestly made Hermione a little jealous, okay. Sometimes, standing next to public-face Charissa with her cultured speech and cultivated manners and unconscious grace just made Hermione feel plain and clumsy, she couldn't help it.

Whenever it got _really_ bad, she just summoned a memory of how Charissa had looked when Hermione had found her passed out on one of the sofas in the Potters' library one day — in sleepwear far short of presentable, book splayed across her chest, one leg and one arm dangling off the edge, visible trail of drool leaking from her mouth. Yes, that always did make her feel much better.

* * *

This made her feel a bit better too.

She and her parents lived far enough out of the heart of Oxford that public transportation could be a bit spotty. So, to get to and from the church they always went to on their English-side Christmas Eves, they'd piled into the car — an idea Charissa hadn't even been close to comfortable with. She'd been very quick to explain, before they'd even left the drive, that she'd _never_ been in motorised transportation of any kind ever. It was really quite amusing how badly she'd taken to it. One hand gripping the moulding on the door, the other curled around the edge of the seat, so tightly her tendons stood out, her teeth grinding so hard Hermione was convinced she heard it over engine noise and her parents' voices. After a few squeaking gasps whenever they passed too close to anything, Charissa had resolutely closed her eyes, breathing harshly, waiting for the ride to end.

After the service, when they'd again approached the car to go back home, the look of exaggerated despair on Charissa's face had set Hermione bursting into giggles. Which Charissa had given her an annoyed look for, but she couldn't help it. It was just so _silly_. She remembered flying lessons, first year, Charissa buzzing around like a lunatic, almost seeming bored with the whole thing, having done it all a thousand times before, while Hermione was completely terrified, having to be told by Charissa and Morag over and over and over that it was perfectly safe, nothing was going to happen, stop being so ridiculous. And now _Charissa_ was the one being ridiculous over something perfectly safe _Hermione_ had done a thousand times before. She didn't know, it amused her.

It probably helped that Charissa was _usually_ so intensely confident — her terror at something so simple as a _car_ somehow seemed extremely out of character. She wasn't sure she'd even seen Charissa scared before today. She just found the contrast funny. Which kind of made her feel a little bad, that Charissa was just short of panicking and here Hermione was giggling at her, but she just really, _really_ couldn't help it.

It wasn't just her, either: she was pretty she'd caught Mum smiling to herself. Probably best not to draw attention to that, though. She doubted Charissa would much appreciate it — whatever self-effacing protestations she might make to the contrary, Charissa was a bit proud.

They weren't so far away from home again, the trip nearly over, but Charissa was still sitting rigidly, her hands clenched on door and seat, eyes squeezed so tightly shut Hermione was sure it couldn't be comfortable. Hermione didn't even bother trying to hide the grin pulling at her lips — with her eyes closed like that, Charissa wouldn't even notice to be offended. 'So, what'd you think, Charissa?' Hermione had tried to ask Charissa's opinion of the service as they'd left — before leaving the house, Charissa had confirmed Hermione's suspicion that she'd never even been in a church before — but the other girl had clearly been too far retreated in her own head, hadn't even seemed to hear the question. And she couldn't help being curious. It wasn't that she was legitimately religious or anything — her parents had never made a point about it growing up, so she guessed the little she'd picked up had simply failed to stick. It was more a sociological curiosity, she guessed. She knew Christianity (religion in general, for that matter) was exceedingly rare in magical society, the few adherents they had almost universally first- or second-generation magicals. Charissa's mother was first-generation, but Hermione had gotten the impression Lily had never been that particularly religious — it was entirely likely she'd shared very little of it with her children, if any at all. All of that back there had quite likely been entirely new to Charissa.

Charissa let out a short, harsh sigh, her eyes remaining tightly closed. 'Can we not talk right now? I'm busy trying not to worry about potentially _exploding_.'

'You've seen too many films,' Dad said from the front, laughter on his voice. 'Normal gasoline-powered vehicles hardly ever do that in your ordinary wreck. Maybe catch on fire a bit, but not explode. They just sort of smash together until you really can't tell one from the other, sometimes.'

It didn't seem Charissa had a coherent response to that. She just let out a quiet, pitiful-sounding sort of moan.

For a second, Hermione had to fight not to laugh. Which was continuing to make her feel bad, but she _just couldn't help it_. 'You're not helping, Dad.' Then a random thought occurred to her. 'Have you ever even seen a film before?' She knew she'd never shown Charissa one — they were usually too busy studying or practising magic over the summer for it to interest her.

It seemed to take Charissa a few seconds to realise Hermione had been asking her. Either that, Hermione wondered, or her jaw was so tightly clenched it took her a bit to loosen it. 'A few.' A couple seconds passed, Charissa's shoulders tightening further as they crossed a seam in the paving with a light _bump_. 'Mum brings me. She likes science fiction.'

She took a couple seconds to imagine that — Lily and Charissa sitting in a cinema somewhere, in full witch's robes, Charissa seeming patently unimpressed next to her much more enthusiastic mother, the ordinary people around them shooting them the occasional peculiar look. An unlikely scenario, sure, but Hermione couldn't help smiling a bit at the thought anyway.

Actually, the thought of a witch who had a thing for science fiction was sort of funny all by itself.

Into her thoughts, Mum said, 'Maybe we should lend Lily a few tapes from Dan's seemingly endless collection.'

'Don't have a television,' Charissa managed through gritted teeth.

Not that that was a _huge_ problem — the Potters could spend that kind of money if they wanted to without even noticing it, she was sure. There was an actual issue with that idea though. 'VHS tapes are magnetic, Mum — the recording would get hopelessly scrambled taking them through the floo. Just carrying them over the wardline would probably ruin them.'

'But Lily put wards over our house too,' Dad said, suddenly sounding a little worried.

'It shouldn't matter. The wards at their house are much older and much more powerful. Ours shouldn't do too much, but I don't think any magnetic media would survive theirs.'

Dad shrugged at that, apparently accepting her explanation. Or maybe, she guessed, simply accepting that, if _Hermione_ could spot that potential issue, Lady Lily Potter of all people certainly would have taken it into account. Not to imply her father didn't think Hermione was intelligent or anything — he'd long developed something of an awkward habit of bragging to people about her, actually — but he could definitely acknowledge Lily had far, far, _far_ more knowledge and experience.

Before too long, they were back home. Hermione was out of the car for a few seconds already, moving toward the door, when she realised Charissa wasn't following them. Oh, right, this was happening again. Hermione went around to the opposite door, pulled it open, and smiled down at Charissa still sitting inside. Not that Charissa could see her smiling — her eyes were still closed, fingers and shoulders still rigidly tense, taking long, slightly harsh-sounding breaths. 'Coming or not?'

'I just need a moment,' Charissa said, sounding a little breathless. Which was a little odd, considering how much effort she was putting into breathing right now. Though this didn't exactly surprise Hermione at all — Charissa had done the same thing on the opposite leg of the trip. She was... It was all just so _silly_. Completely against her will, she felt a giggle bubbling up her throat, forcefully enough she knew she wouldn't be able to stop it. She still covered her mouth with a hand, trying to stifle the sound down as quiet as possible. Charissa's eyes finally opened, and turned to look up at Hermione, the beginnings of a glare on her face. 'Is this really that funny?'

Once she had complete control of her voice again, she said, 'Not exactly.' At least, it didn't feel like she was laughing _at_ Charissa. She knew what that felt like from experience — carefully out of earshot. No, she knew, what was really going on here was that, 'You're just so adorably silly sometimes I can't help it.'

Charissa just rolled her eyes with a little huff. Which almost made Hermione start laughing again.

* * *

'So, anyway, what _did_ you think?'

Charissa sighed, giving Hermione a look across the corner of the table, spoon halfway to her mouth. 'Why does it matter so much?'

'It doesn't, I guess,' Hermione said, shrugging. 'I'm just curious.' It wasn't just her, either — she could practically feel the slightly-increased attention from her parents on the opposite side of the table. She'd be willing to bet they were curious for the same academic reasons she was.

She didn't think she'd ever be open to the idea of gambling, but if she were practically one hundred percent guaranteed to win, why not?

Charissa let out another sigh, letting her spoon fall back into her bowl — the same lamb stew thing they seemed to have every Christmas Eve — her opposite hand rubbing at her face. After a couple seconds, she said, 'I'm not sure you want to hear what I really think. I'm told religion can be one of those things muggles are sensitive about.'

Really, Hermione thought she was more _sensitive_ about the use of that word, and the somewhat patronising feel of the statement as a whole, than she would be about anything Charissa could possibly say about Christianity itself. But, her father was on it. 'You don't have to worry about us taking it _too_ personally, Charissa — we're not exactly all that religious ourselves. We still go sometimes more out of tradition than anything.' That, and the music was pretty. The specific church they visited on these sorts of days tended to put far more effort into these particular services than normal, to the point that it was sort of like a free classical concert. But that wasn't really the point.

Her eyes slightly narrowed, Charissa stared at Dad for a moment, her gaze quickly flicking to Mum and Hermione a couple times. Then she sighed, yet again, sounding a bit exasperated — self-directed, Hermione thought, but she'd be the first to admit she wasn't great at figuring that sort of thing out. 'Alright. I liked the presentation, but the content was ridiculous, and mildly disturbing with a little thought.'

'Mind abridging yourself a little less?' Though her voice and expression were rather flat, Hermione noticed the barest sense of amusement about Mum — though Charissa probably didn't know her well enough to notice.

Charissa shrugged to herself. 'Well, the myth is just a bit...silly, isn't it? It has the feel of one of those overdone children's stories to me, with the powerful spiritual beings and prophecies and such. And that's not even addressing the fact that the myth doesn't even make sense — if this _Lord God, Heavenly King_ referred to really existed and were as powerful as they say, there would be no _reason_ this saviour figure would ever need to be, if you follow. It's not internally consistent.

'And then, well,' Charissa said, sounding much more uncomfortable all of a sudden, 'there's the fact that there are people, many people, who _believe_ it all, that it factually happened. People give their lives for this stuff. That is...concerning, to me. What sort of things could an unscrupulous character talk any number of people into, just by telling them a pretty story? Imagine the damage any witch or wizard could do in the muggle world, just by showing a little power, saying the right things to the right people, pushing those same emotional buttons, inspiring thousands of people to devote themselves with that same religious fervor. The thought is terrifying.'

Actually...Hermione had never thought of that possibility before. That _was_ a bit scary.

'Not to say muggles are the only people susceptible to that sort of manipulation. Despite what so many pureblood supremacists might think, from what I can tell, magical people really aren't any different psychologically from muggles — we are all gifted with a similar degree of natural intelligence, are all driven by the same desires and biases. The thought of a clever Dark Lord, someone like that, adapting the same sort of fatalistic, emotional drive into their rhetoric is... Well, that's the stuff of nightmares, isn't it?

'But I did like the presentation. The drama and emotion behind much of it, both the composition and the performance of the music accompanying. It was well-done. Which I guess just makes the disturbing part worse, if you think about it. But, sure, it was nice.'

Dad, a smirk crossing his face, shook his head to himself a little. 'First time you set foot inside a church, you come out with the impression that religion is fundamentally terrifying.'

Looking a bit uncertain, maybe a little confused, Charissa just said, 'Well, it _is_ , isn't it?'

'I suppose,' Dad said, shrugging a little. 'But, then, that's true of anything people choose to believe in unconditionally. Any principle or idea held in such high esteem empirical reality, no matter how divergent the two are, cannot touch it could, in the proper conditions, motivate people to terrifying extremes. Acting without thinking is always dangerous. A pattern we perhaps most commonly see with religion, but it's not something exclusive to religion.'

'Really,' Mum said with a mirroring shrug, 'we mostly just go for the music.'

For a few seconds, Charissa turned from one Granger to the other, giving them all a look. Hermione couldn't read it at all, had no idea what was going on in her head. Whatever it was, Charissa chose not to voice it in the end, and focused on her food instead.

* * *

Hermione had barely finished changing for bed when she heard Dad's voice on the other side of the door. ' _Chérie_? You decent?

'Yeah, Dad,' she said, frowning to herself a little. 'What is it?'

Somewhat to her surprise, the reply came in Mum's voice instead. 'Can we come in?'

This was still sort of new to her. It hadn't really been all that long ago that, if her parents needed to talk to her about something, they'd just walk in. If she happened to have her door closed, they'd usually asked if she was _decent_ first — though she could yet remember a time when they hadn't even done that — but they still wouldn't ask for her permission. It felt sort of weird to her. But she just shrugged and said, 'Yeah, sure.' As she spoke, she moved over to her bed, perched on the edge of the mattress facing the door.

And within a couple seconds, had one of her parents sitting directly at either side of her. Hmm. Seemed they were being oddly serious all of a sudden. Mum had a cardboard box in her hands, half as wide as long, about the length of her forearm, tied shut with a little bit of bright red ribbon. Mum said, 'We, ah, wanted to wait for Charissa to leave before giving you this.'

'Not that we minded you inviting her over,' Dad said instantly. 'Such a clever girl, and you know I always have fun picking at her head. We just wanted to tell you alone first.'

Hermione felt herself frowning, glancing back and forth between the two of them. 'Tell me what?'

In place of an answer, Mum just handed her the box.

Erm. Okay.

For a moment, Hermione considered reaching for her wand so she could use a severing charm on the ribbon, but it was tied loosely enough she could just stretch one end up and over a corner of the box, sliding the thing off whole. She hesitated for a second — her parents were looking at her really _weird_ — before lifting away the lid of the box. There was a tee shirt inside, a rather violently bright shade of pink. She picked it up, unfolding it a bit, quickly discovering it was one of those tee shirts with words emblazoned on them, a top line in stylised print, a bottom rather fancy-looking cursive, spelling out—

Hermione froze, staring at the text with eyes wide.

 _WORLD'S BEST  
_ _Big Sister_

After a couple seconds, she turned to stare at Mum instead. Didn't say anything — she wasn't sure she _could_ say anything at the moment — but Mum obviously figured out what she was not-asking. A slightly hesitant grin on her face, Mum said, 'Come late May, early June, you'll have a little sister.' Hermione could only stare at her — _Sister_? 'We considered telling you earlier, sending a letter off to Hogwarts, but, well...' She trailed off, suddenly looking a little uncomfortable.

Dad picked the topic up almost immediately. 'When you get to your mother's age, some things aren't quite so sure anymore. By the time we were confident everything was going well, you were going to be home soon for Christmas anyway.'

Oh. Mum was getting rather near the end of her reproductive life, wasn't she? Even in Hermione's case, her parents were older than those of most people her age who'd mentioned it. Not by a lot, but still. She hadn't thought of that. With the automatic smoothness she was accustomed to, her brain helpfully provided her with all sorts of pertinent statistics — mostly related to the epidemiology of various complications and congenital disorders adjusted against the age of the mother. Thanks for that, situational recall, that was definitely what she wanted to be thinking about right now.

Not that her brain was really making much sense right now in general. Everything was oddly scrambly. It sort of reminded her of when she'd gotten her hands on more coffee than a child should have, when she'd been seven — her thoughts all hyperactive and jumbled, random tangential memories popping into replay in her head before fading again. She doubted she could really say anything coherent.

So she just hugged her mother instead.

* * *

[Dad had had an affair some years ago] — _You've all probably figured this out by now, but yes, that happened._

[the Netherlands, where the muggle States-General is talking about legalising marriage for such couples] — _Just across the sea from Britain, the Netherlands was the first nation in the world to legalise same-sex marriage, the law passed in December, 2000. While the legislative committee that eventually recommended the law wasn't formed until 1995, whether or not they should legalise had **definitely** already entered public discourse by 1993. It was something they were talking about._

[Alice still prefers women, actually.] — _It is safe to assume for now that this statement about Alice's sexuality only applies to this particular fic, and none of my others in future, until and unless I state otherwise._

[Sir Attenborough] — _I had Hermione say this wrong on purpose. It's not a mistake._

[even under her Hogwarts robes] — _Don't know if I've ever explained it, but the Hogwarts uniform — and the style of clothing referred to as "robes" in general, actually — is not as is shown in the movies and such. The details aren't super important, so I haven't lingered on it. Think somewhere between classical Greek/Roman and traditional Asian dress, something like that. What they call "robes" in the movies are closer to what this fic would refer to as "cloaks" (which is what those **are** , thank you)._

[magnetic media] — _In case anyone's curious, that would include VHS tapes, audio cassettes, floppy discs, most varieties of computer hard drives (I think all used in 1993), as well as certain varieties of embedded memory (though would have been rare at the time). In my headcanon conception of this stuff, all of those would spectacularly die in the presence of sufficient concentrations of magical energy, of which a wardline would be an example. Theoretically, they could get a VHS player across the wardline — though they'd have to take it apart and remove any capacitors that might be on the circuit board, then rebuild it on the other side — but a CRT television like was mostly used at the time would be much more difficult, and tapes would be all but impossible. At least, without specially-designed shielding anyway, which they'd likely have to invent for themselves._

[ _Lord God, Heavenly King_ ] — _Charissa is quoting the_ Gloria _here (you know,_ Glória in excélsis Deo / et in terra pax homínibus bonæ voluntátis _), a version of which surely would have been sung at some point._

[Really, we mostly just go for the music.] — _Even if you're fiercely atheist, admit it: Jesus got a whole lot of damn good music written for him over the centuries._

[though she could yet remember a time when they hadn't even done that] — _That pretty much stopped when Hermione was, like, five. Just another case of her memory being ridiculous._


	16. An Uncomfortable Christmas Day

Charissa was just finishing setting her hair into a plait — with a charm, because she was, to be perfectly honest, just too lazy to do it by hand — when she was startled by the familiar sound of an owl's beak tapping against glass. She blinked, glanced at the window, and blinked again. It was Jas's owl. She didn't remember the thing's name, but the brown–black variegation was familiar enough. What was Jas doing sending an owl here? They'd be at his house in less than an hour. Weird.

She checked her hair in the mirror quick to make sure the interruption hadn't messed up the last couple inches of the spell, then tied it off with another flick of her wrist and the proper incantation. She'd been _trying_ to get these sorts of spells she did practically daily down to silent casting, but she hadn't had much luck yet. Mum, who could do the same charms _wandlessly_ , said it'd taken her until she was about a year older than Charissa before she could do it consistently without the incantation, so it wasn't like she was behind. But it was still slightly annoying. She'd only had much luck casting basic fire spells silently so far.

She knew objectively that was still impressive — she was probably giving herself a skewed impression of her own abilities by trying to evaluate herself against _her mother_ of all people.

A few seconds later, she had the window open, the owl fluttering up to her shoulder. She took the folded up bit of muggle-style lined paper from the owl, spread it open. And frowned at the short message she found.

 _Cassie—_

 _I need a change of clothes. Yours should probably fit me._

— _Jas_

That was just...confusing. For one thing, she still wasn't used to how Jas insisted on calling her _Cassie_. He'd developed a weird little quirk last term of coming up with nicknames for everyone around him. Mostly just by shortening given names — like how the Longbottoms were Nev and Neira — but some people got unique ones. Luna, for example, got the rather embarrassing moniker of Dove (Lovegood, lovey-dovey, Dove), which somehow didn't seem to bother her at all. But this _was_ Luna she was talking about, so maybe she shouldn't be surprised. Jas had _started_ trying to just shorten Hermione but, sounding a bit exasperated, she'd told him to call her Maïa if he _really must_ (apparently, what her French cousins called her). Jas had said _Charissa_ didn't lend itself to abbreviating very easily, so he'd had to go from her middle name instead.

She was rather glad no one else had picked it up. It just felt a little awkward to her.

And then, well, there was the content of the note itself. What would Jas need a change of clothes from her for? He had plenty of his own. She'd been dragged along on more than one shopping trip, so she knew that full well. And, well, Jas _was_ almost as tall as she was, and she was pretty sure most of her shirts should fit him just fine, but her trousers would be slightly more problematic. She was a short stretch into puberty by now, so her frame naturally wasn't quite so childishly androgynous — even if Jas weren't younger than her, he'd already started a potion regiment to delay that sort of thing until the proper blood alchemy ritual could be arranged. So what she wore these days would probably be a little awkwardly loose about the hips, but one of her older pairs from a year or two ago should be fine, she thought. So, yes, she could probably find clothes for him well enough. She just wasn't sure why he would need them.

But, in the end, she just shrugged, and started flipping through her wardrobe.

A few minute later, and she was stepping off the stairs, into the sitting room. And was immediately met with. 'Are you wearing a _dress_?'

Charissa sighed, turned to give her brother a look. Linden was ten now — he'd be starting Hogwarts next year, actually — and looked for anything like a younger copy of Dad. And, no, he hadn't been getting any less annoying over the last couple years. Would most likely be a second-generation Marauder at this rate. He was sprawled out on the sofa, a maths book Charissa instantly recognised from her own homeschooling open on his lap, giving her a half-disbelieving, half-confused sort of look. 'No.'

'Well, it sure _looks_ like it.'

With another sigh, Charissa hooked a finger under her jumper and the vest beneath, lifted both just high enough to reveal a sliver of skin beneath. 'Skirt, not dress.'

Linden rolled his eyes. 'Oh, same thing.'

'They're really not.'

'I don't care. Dress, skirt, whichever, since when do you wear either?'

He was making a bigger deal of this than she thought it was really worth. Sure, she'd gotten out of the habit of wearing this kind of thing, but she'd just sort of...felt like it lately. She didn't know why. She did feel sort of awkward about it, considering how she'd made a point of avoiding more feminine dress these last couple years, and was, she didn't know, out of practice, but still. She'd only partially lied to Hermione yesterday: she had vetoed some of the more...excessively girly suggestions Mum had made, and the dress she'd ended up wearing _had_ been one of Dora's transfigured to fit, but the whole thing had been her idea in the first place. She'd privately admit how Hermione'd been staring at her for a minute there — which, yes, had likely been more from simple novelty than anything — had been decent motivation to keep doing it. But anyway, the point was, she already felt awkward enough about this without Linden teasing her. 'Since literally before you were born.'

Linden gave her a soft, sarcastic glare. 'Smart-arse.' Then turned back to his book.

Shaking her head to herself, she settled into an armchair to wait. But not without sniping back, 'Brat.'

She noticed Linden was grinning to himself. That probably counted as a perfectly pleasant brother–sister conversation in his book. Such a little nutter.

But, then, she was convinced most everyone in her family was a nutter of one kind or another, so she should really be used to it by this point.

She didn't know exactly how long it was, probably just a couple minutes, before Perry came plodding into the room. It still surprised her whenever she saw him that he hadn't had his hair cut yet. Sure, many of the traditionalists among the upper classes of magical society kept their hair long, no matter their sex, but House Potter had dropped the habit a couple generations ago. His hair was almost as long as hers by now, tied back in the loose knot usually worn by boys. He did have rather nice hair, really — he'd inherited the thick, smooth waves from their Black side, but the sharp red colour from Mum — but she still thought it was slightly odd. Especially sitting on the sofa right next to their brother as he was now, a sharp contrast against Linden's jet-black, ear-length bird's nest.

And it still vaguely unsettled her how _quiet_ Perry seemed these days. He'd always been quiet and modest compared to Linden, of course, but ever since she'd come back for the winter holiday he seemed positively introverted. Almost depressed, even, which just didn't seem right on her sweet little brother. She could only assume it was because of the problems their parents were having — Perry had always been much more sensitive than Linden, after all — but he hadn't said anything.

Of course, she hadn't asked, either. Maybe she should? She was sort of out of practice at the supportive elder sister thing, being off at Hogwarts nine months of the year as she was. Not that she'd been that great at it in the first place. She would have no idea what to say. But if she were to try to talk to him, they likely didn't have time for it right now, and she _probably_ shouldn't do it in front of Linden anyway, so she made a mental note to think on it later.

Not long after that, their parents were walking in. As she and her brothers stood up, gathered with them around the floo, Charissa gradually started feeling about as depressed as Perry looked. Sure, they were acting all normal, with the same smiles and teasing lilts on their voices as they always had. But it was just that — acting. She wasn't sure why she knew. Maybe it was the air of frustration about Dad, sensed in the tenseness in his movements, the slightest bite at the edge of his voice. Maybe it was how Mum was, still, looking even more tired than usual, seeming oddly sluggish, the familiar lines of exhaustion on her face curving into bags under her eyes. How much further apart they seemed to be standing.

Although, now that she thought about it, her parents hadn't really ever been the most touchy-feely, clingy of couples. Old pictures she'd seen and stories from a few people they'd known forever implied they _used_ to be, but not for as long as she could remember. But even so, she noticed almost immediately they were staying further apart than usual. She could count on her fingers the number of times she'd seen them in the same room since break started — and most of those had been for the Solstice.

For a moment, a part of her really wanted to tell them off. Trying to pretend everything was just fine wasn't making them feel any better. At least, she knew it wasn't making _her_ feel any better, and she was pretty sure Perry wasn't pleased with it either, judging by how he was barely answering their prodding at all, not meeting their eyes. Linden didn't seem any different, but maybe he just hadn't noticed.

But she changed her mind. Maybe the pretending wasn't really for them, exactly. She would hardly pretend to be an expert on why people would do this sort of thing, but...she knew people pretended for all sorts of reasons, and just as much for themselves as other people. Such posturing wasn't limited to Slytherin, not even close, everyone did it. If there was some reason they felt they had to, they could just go right ahead. It wasn't her place to stop them.

When the ritual pre-outing talk was over, they went on through the floo one by one. Charissa maneuvered herself intentionally so she would leave first.

So it was, when she appeared in the Palmers' otherwise muggle sitting room, she hadn't even fully adjusted to the change of scenery before someone grabbed her by the wrist, and started roughly dragging her off. She was too disoriented to really resist — and besides, it was probably just one of her cousins. When the last traces of the dizziness from the floo dropped away, she was already being pulled up the stairs, and she could finally see she'd assumed correctly: Jas. 'What's going on?'

'You got my letter, right?' His voice sounded odd, strangely harsh and nasally. He didn't look at her, just kept dragging her up the stairs.

'Erm, yeah. Shrunk some stuff, in my pocket. What's go—'

'Shrunk? I don't think we can use magic here. Your mum is still tweaking the wards.'

She knew that — for some reason, it had been far easier to get the wards on the Grangers' place to settle right, so the mostly identical wards Mum had been working on for the Palmers weren't quite finished yet. She could only assume it had something to do with ambient magic, but didn't know enough about warding to even guess. But it wouldn't matter. 'The Ministry only sends warnings for wanded magic, and on something this small I can do a dispel without too—' Charissa suddenly cut off, because at that very moment she'd finally noticed what Jas was wearing. She didn't think she'd seen Jas in a dress or skirt since...well, over a year, and every time he had was, she knew now, only because Aunt Petunia had made him. 'What...?'

Jas didn't respond, but Charissa did see his shoulders tighten noticeably under the offending garment — it was a rather pretty red and white dress, actually, but Charissa very much doubted he was happy to be in it, so _offending_ was certainly the right word — his fingers around her wrist clenched almost painfully.

A few seconds later, they were in Jas's bedroom. It was obvious someone else had been through here. Last Charissa had been in, the floor had been strewn with books and bits of trash, the walls nearly plastered with animated posters — quidditch teams, mostly, but also a rather large one of a sleeping Opaleye that Charissa had quite liked watching. But now the place was much cleaner than before, looking almost sterile, and the posters had been removed to reveal the almost pastel pink paint underneath. Jas let go, whirled around to look at her. 'Come on, give me.'

Charissa didn't move right away, just staring at him. His eyes were bloodshot, his face all red and puffy. He'd been crying. Had she _ever_ seen Jas cry? Even the worst of the bullying his first year had just made him more coldly angry than anything. But the spell was broken when Jas suddenly whipped the dress off over his head, chucked it overhand hard against the opposite wall. Even as Charissa tore apart her shrinking charm on the clothes she'd brought — which might be a bit more difficult to do than she'd let on, but not beyond her abilities, quite nearly the only thing she could do without a wand consistently — the thigh-length slip Jas had been wearing underneath got the same treatment.

Seeing Jas nearly naked was...weird. She'd met Jas as a girl, of course, but in the intervening time he had more or less completely switched genders in her head. And, sure, he was artificially frozen prebuscently androgynous, and had a few more visible muscle lines than most girls she knew allowed — excluding quidditch players and duellists, anyway, and Jas _did_ hope to make chaser next year — it was still clear he was physically female. The almost excessively feminine muggle-style knickers didn't help.

It was just so _weird_.

Not that she had to deal with the weird for too long. Each move sharp and jerky, Jas snatched the bundle from Charissa's arms, yanked them on hard and quick enough muggle-made clothes might have ripped. A moment later, dressed again — though still looking a bit ruffled and crooked — Jas let out a sigh, running his fingers through his hair. He glanced at her after a moment, muttered, 'Thanks.'

'What the hell's going on here?' That was mostly only something she said around Jas — it wasn't a curse magicals necessarily used.

Jas hesitated, giving Charissa a very uncomfortable look. Then he sighed again. 'Mum doesn't approve of Jasper. She wants Jasmine back.'

'Oh, is _that_ what Jas is short for?'

'Erm...?' Jas raised an eyebrow at her, _almost_ smiling.

Yes, she'd admit, rather obvious in retrospect. She'd just never thought to ask. Or she'd been told and forgotten — she really couldn't remember. Charissa just shrugged her moment of stupidity off. 'Why?'

And now Jas looked confused. 'What?'

'Why doesn't she approve?'

'Erm...' For a few seconds, Jas just stared at her, blinking. 'Isn't that obvious, really?'

And, suddenly, she remembered the talk she'd had with Mum a couple days ago, about how muggles were weird about certain things — that conversation, homosexuality specifically. Now that she thought about it, Mum had reiterated to Charissa, a bit more strongly than necessary, that she was to look out for Jas when this whole thing first came out. It must be a muggle culture thing. 'Oh. I suppose to a muggleborn it might be.' Jas just gave her another weird look at that, so she said, 'Has anyone been giving you much trouble for it at school?'

Jas frowned down at the floor. He looked a little surprised on top of his confusion, as though that had never occurred to him to notice before. 'Not really? Not for this, anyway. A little bit of teasing here and there, but they honestly seem to care about me being muggleborn more.'

'Yeah,' Charissa said with a little shrug, 'this is one of those things we just don't care about. Why _should_ we care, anyway? What business is it of anyone else's? What difference does it really make in the end?'

Jas gave her another confused look, as though he were completely unsure what to say to that.

'Though, I guess you should be glad your mum can't do magic.' At the even more confused look, Charissa pointed at Jas's shaggy, ear-length hair. 'She can't force a hair-growing charm on you.'

He just rolled his eyes at her.

* * *

It was clear Aunt Petunia knew Charissa had brought that change of clothes for Jas — it _was_ obvious enough Charissa would be a little disappointed if she hadn't figured it out. And, while Petunia didn't _say_ anything, it was also clear she was completely furious. She hardly even looked at Charissa, and when she did it was with lips compressed to a tight line, eyes narrowed into a glare. No, Aunt Petunia wasn't happy with her, not at all.

Not that she really cared. To be completely honest, Petunia just might be her least favourite aunt — excluding Bellatrix, who she was currently angry with — and considering how many aunts she had, that was really saying something. And, as far as she was concerned, Petunia was in the wrong here, so she could fume as much as she wanted, Charissa didn't care.

Jas obviously did, though. Charissa had thought spending Christmas Eve with the Grangers was going to be uncomfortable — and it had been, if not quite as awkward as she'd expected. Yesterday had absolutely nothing on the suffocating tension in the air today. She would admit she didn't see a lot of this family interacting. Jas and Violet got along just fine, and would mostly just come to her house, without their parents. Richard and Petunia would pop through the floo for a bit on occasion, but not very often, and never for long. But even so, she could tell it was all wrong. Aunt Petunia more snippy than usual, Uncle Richard giving her the occasional exasperated look, Jas and Violet both (unsuccessfully) trying to pretend nothing was wrong. This was just a fun day, wasn't it?

Yeah, Charissa didn't want to be here. Luckily for her, the whole thing ended up being cut short.

It was a couple hours later, after lunch, all of them gathered in the sitting room for that strange gift-opening thing muggles do. She still didn't think she understood the point of wrapping gifts in the first place, certainly not this whole oddly ritualistic nonsense they had surrounding the practice, but that wasn't really the point. They had just barely all settled in before Petunia said something — Charissa honestly hadn't caught what, she hadn't been paying attention, really. But Richard, who had been growing progressively more annoyed as the day went on, obviously had. He stood up, grabbed her by the arm, and started dragging her away, over biting verbal protest. Soon, they disappeared upstairs. Most of the room glanced around at each other, looking just as confused as she was. Not Mum and Dad though — they seemed to know exactly what was going on.

Barely a few seconds later, Charissa heard her aunt and uncle's voices, muffled a bit by distance and barriers. She couldn't hear them well enough to pick out the specifics of what they were saying, but they were obviously yelling at each other.

Well. And here Charissa thought today couldn't get more awkward.

She saw Mum, on the couch across the room, let out a long, heavy sigh. She stood, walked over to where Jas was sitting on the floor. She bent over, clearly whispered something in Jas's ear — whatever it was, Jas nodded, looking distinctly relieved. Then Mum was moving toward the bench in front of the piano, where Charissa sat, and leaned into her own ear. Charissa tried not to be uncomfortable about that. 'Go home with Jas. If your aunt and uncle don't calm down in a few minutes, I'll send the rest through too. We should get back before bed time for Perry and Violet, but if we don't, take everyone to the Longbottoms' for the night.' Charissa nodded, sure she looked just as relieved as Jas.

By the time the green fire of the Floo had again died down, Charissa was already getting uncomfortable. Should she maybe...talk to Jas? She knew this stuff going on with Richard and Petunia couldn't be easy for him. Charissa didn't know how she'd feel if her parents were arguing over her. (Actually, she was pretty sure they _did_ do that occasionally, they just didn't tell her about it.) Jas should probably talk to _someone_ , she thought — she'd gathered by now that it was common wisdom that people should talk to someone trusted about things bothering them. _Normal_ people, anyway, as Charissa wasn't sure how much that applied to her. Unless she was directly asking her mother for advice, that was different.

Which might be part of why she had absolutely no idea what she should say. She wasn't very good at such emotion-centered conversations. She had little experience in such things, and the ones she had had had mostly just made her uncomfortable. So she probably wouldn't be much good to Jas in such a conversation anyway. But she should prob—

Charissa had still been staring helplessly at a morose-looking Jas when the hearth flared green, and Violet came stumbling into the room. Within seconds, Violet had dragged Jas over to the sofa, where the two of them were now cuddled up, whispering to each other.

Well. That covered that, then.

No, wait. She still had to have a very similar conversation with Perry anyway. Shite.

Disappearing up the stairs to give her cousins a bit a privacy, she let out a long sigh. This certainly hadn't been a boring Yuletide, no doubt about that.

* * *

In the end, her parents had come home — staggered, Dad nearly a half hour before Mum — long after sunset, even as she was considering whether to go to the Longbottoms' as she'd been told. Though, apparently, whatever situation had been going on these hours hadn't been _entirely_ neutralised. When Mum did finally show up, she'd talked quietly with Jas and Violet for a minute before the three of them disappeared through the floo again, calling the key for the cottage Neville, Gwyneira, and their parents spent most of their time at, instead of the much larger Longbottom Manor. (Charissa's family had a very similar arrangement — she could count on her fingers the number of times she'd even visited Potter Hall, most of them Grandma Dorea's birthdays, even though the place was _technically_ her legal residence.) After some minutes, Mum hadn't come back, so Charissa decided to just head off to bed, even though it was still sort of early.

She'd been getting tired strangely easily this last week or so. It was getting gradually better, and her chest hardly ached at all anymore, but it was still annoying.

But, once she was changed and in bed, she found it hard to sleep. Her brain just seemed to be refusing to shut up. This did happen to her fairly often — not that that meant it had at all stopped being _annoying_. A few times she'd even been stuck awake so long she'd surrendered and cast a charm to force herself to sleep. She didn't have to do that often. Usually, if she just let her mind wander a half hour, an hour, the silly thing would eventually _just stop_. So she just let it go for a while, trying not to get too annoyed with herself. Augí curling up next to her helped with that bit a little.

It was a bit peculiar, she thought, that both of the Evans sisters seemed to be having trouble with their marriages at the same time. Of course, she was pretty sure her parents had been having difficulties for quite some time — she had a weird feeling they'd _never_ gotten on that great — and Petunia and Richard's issue seemed to be mostly a disagreement over how to handle Jas. At least, as far as she could tell. She'd admit she didn't really see too much of her muggle aunt and uncle and, to be completely honest, didn't trust her ability to gauge the relationships of other people very well at all anyway, so there could have been serious problems before and she doubt she would have noticed. She would ask Jas, if only out of curiosity, but she didn't think that was something he'd feel comfortable talking about. And doing something that would intentionally make him uncomfortable wasn't exactly looking after Family like Mum had told her to.

Sometimes, with the way Mum and many of her relatives talked, she really thought Family should be capitalised.

Now that she thought about it, was Aunt Petunia even a muggle? Charissa was pretty sure she was technically a squib. From what she'd heard, if there was _any_ magic among full siblings — as Jas and Violet were, and she could only assume the same for Mum and Petunia — they _almost always_ all had it. There were exceptions, but they were rare. The only one she could think of off the top of her head was Uncle Ted, who had three or four brothers and sisters who were all muggles. And she wasn't sure they were all full siblings anyway. She knew Petunia had some congenital disease, she forgot what it was called, and it was entirely possible that interference in her proper physical development crippled her magical development as well. It was generally thought that squibs had magical blood that, for whatever reason, simply didn't express properly — since squibs seemed to have magical children just as consistently as normal mages, that's the only thing that made sense. At least, that was what Charissa had learned _other_ magical nations thought. Squibs were generally not so well-treated in Britain. There were ways to test to make sure one way or the other about Petunia, maybe she should check. Not that it really mattered. She was just randomly curious.

She should maybe stop pretending the Gaunt twins annoyed her. They could be a bit much, when she wasn't really in the mood for their particular brand of quirkiness, and they had a nasty habit of bothering her when she didn't wish to be bothered. But she did have to admit, here in the privacy of her own thoughts in the middle of the night, that she did rather like them. They were more clever than most, had a dark, playful sense of humour that she knew _shouldn't_ amuse her, but did anyway. And they were devious as anything, but the good kind of devious, like Mum or Alice. Well, maybe more like Mum than Alice — Alice had a more Marauder-style of playfully malicious deviousness, while Mum was surprisingly good at manipulating people for pragmatic ends when she actually put the effort into trying. Of course, the pragmatic ends Mum tried to achieve were mostly just getting people to leave her alone, while she would be entirely unsurprised to find the Gaunt twins dominating British politics from the shadows in a few decades. And she knew their ends were hardly ever lily-white, had already by this early age developed a habit of playing with people for their own amusement. But she had to admit it could be really fun to watch. The little teasing half-admissions they gave whenever she tried to get them to fess up to it always made her smile. So. Maybe things would be more interesting if she stopped pretending it all bothered her.

She guessed that would be surrendering to the maliciously Slytherin side of her own personality more than she usually allowed herself, but ignoring those impulses wouldn't make them go away.

Speaking of politics, she was pretty sure the negotiations for the revival for the Triwizard Tournament were about to go through. _Unfortunately_ , it just _had_ to happen at the worst possible time. They planned to hold the thing every four years — whether or not that was a conscious reference to the Olympics by the more muggle-conscious Continental governments, she had no idea. If the agreement as Dad had last explained it went through, only people fifteen and older would be allowed to enter. If, as expected, the first competition was to happen the very next year, she would be too young, and would already be out of school by the time the next one came around. At least it was most likely going to be at Hogwarts, so she'd get to see it, as well as participate in the periphery competitions that went with it. Apparently, there was going to be multiple duelling tournaments over the course of the year, including brackets for singles and doubles, as well as larger teams, like a proper tournament. Neville would almost certainly agree to double with her, and she was pretty sure they'd even be able to put a whole seven-person team together that wouldn't be _too_ awful. She hoped to get into the lower division of the official Hogwarts duelling team at some point next year, but that was something of a long shot — she was pretty sure they would still have a full team next year, so that would only happen if someone quit or was kicked out. This would also be the first year she'd be allowed to attend those holiday balls that...well, yes, they did sound awful most of the time, but the one on the winter solstice next year would be held at Hogwarts, and would be quasi-international, so it should be interesting.

Maybe if she'd sorted out the Hermione situation by then — which was _certainly_ more than enough time — she could go with her. She thought Hermione would look nice all made up, could be fun.

And there her thoughts went going down a completely different direction. A rather lascivious direction. That'd been happening increasingly frequently these days, really, she was mostly getting used to it. Most frequently involving Hermione, but not even _close_ to only Hermione. Her brain did have a tendency to wander, and she'd argue natural curiosity was a good thing. It did make her feel a bit odd when her more lewd thoughts touched people she was _related_ to, but there wasn't anything she could do about that — she was related to _a lot_ of people, after all, so it was bound to happen. Besides, it wasn't like she was planning on actually _doing_ anything with any of her many cousins, so it was nothing to feel too weird over. She _did_ have intentions with Hermione, she would freely admit that to herself, but she had to figure out how to even approach the subject first. Stupid muggle cultural shite being complicated...

After a few minutes lying there in the darkness, having _very_ complimentary thoughts about a few girls she knew, she wasn't sleepy at all anymore. Which was just fine with her — there was very much something else she felt like doing right now instead. She felt a whisper of amusement from Augí as the _distracting_ heat kept building hotter, then the slightest shifting as he slipped off the bed and padded away. Sticking around wouldn't have bothered _him_ at all, but he knew it made her vaguely uncomfortable, and he was nice enough to oblige her. Now alone in her bed, she got _distracted_ even quicker, and her fingers were already halfway to her knickers when she belatedly remembered to reach for her wand. Late in the summer, she'd forgotten to put up a silencing, and Linden had proceeded to be an _enormous arse_ about it later that afternoon. Brat. She started forming the proper form, the incantation on—

She barely heard her door hesitantly creak open over the rushing in her ears. 'Charissa?' The whisper was soft and low, but obviously Perry.

A part of Charissa — a very large, very warm, very _distracted_ part — was, quite suddenly, _extremely_ annoyed. She was halfway through a banishing to slam the door shut in Perry's face when she hesitated. Family. She was always supposed to take care of Family — that really should be capitalised. That was probably the very first true _rule_ Mum had taught her. Or maybe she should capitalise that too. Not a simple rule, not like all the other things she'd been constantly told growing up, everything from not going into the forest alone at night to all that proper young lady nonsense she'd internalised despite still thinking it was silly. No, taking care of family was a _Rule_ , a law of life, one she must _always_ observe, no matter the situation, above all other concerns — a rather characteristically Black frame of mind, which was kind of funny, considering it was _Mum_ who'd been pushing it. Unless she was reading him wrong, Perry was in need of being taken care of, which _definitely_ took precedence over touching herself in this philosophy.

She tried not to sound _too_ annoyed. 'What is it, Perry?' _Say it was nothing and go away, say it was nothing and go away, say it was nothing and—_

'Can I come in?'

 _Dammit_. Holding back a sigh, she pushed herself into sitting, leaning against the headboard. 'Yeah, sure.'

Sometimes, she really wished Mum hadn't told her to be nice to people as appropriate. To be completely honest, she wouldn't bother most of the time otherwise.

A few seconds later, her youngest brother was settling into her bed. Which was making her a bit uncomfortable, considering the sexual heat she'd allowed herself to get all wrapped up in hadn't even _started_ dissipating yet. She'd have to do her best not to let on, because that would just make Perry uncomfortable, which would then make her even _more_ uncomfortable, bad for everyone. Ignoring another flash of amusement from Augí — the way he found nearly any time she was awkward funny never ceased to annoy her — she swallowed another sigh so she could talk. 'What's wrong?'

'Couldn't sleep.'

Okay, that was a little peculiar. She knew that Perry had had occasional trouble sleeping for, well, forever. But he'd always slip into Linden's bed those nights — he'd never come in here. She didn't know what to think about that. In the end, she decided it was probably best just to ask. 'Did Linden kick you out or something?'

'No,' Perry said in something closer to a grumble than normal speech. She couldn't see him well at all — it was cloudy enough tonight it was almost completely black in here — so she had to imagine the grumpy, disgruntled look on his face. 'He would just be a prat about it.'

'Why? Well, I mean, he's almost always a prat, but I don't think that's what you mean.' And she was pretty sure Linden targeted her for concerted teasing much more than he did Perry, but that wasn't really the point.

He hesitated for a moment before muttering, 'He's on Dad's side.'

'Er.' She frowned into the darkness for a moment. Apparently she'd been missing things off at Hogwarts — she hadn't realised there were _sides_. 'And whose side are you on?'

'I just want them to stop fighting, go back to normal.'

Yep, that was definitely a very sad tone of voice right there. To be completely honest, how obviously torn up Perry was about this was making her more uncomfortable than anything. Might be shitty of her, but this just wasn't something she wanted to deal with. Besides, she'd been becoming increasingly convinced that she was sort of a shitty person, so that should really be expected. But he was _Family_ , and it was a _Rule_. Trying not to sigh again, she slid a little closer to him, wrapped an arm around his shoulders — he immediately latched onto her side, both arms sliding around her waist, one behind her back and one over her stomach. Which, since she was still a bit turned on at the moment, was just making her _more_ uncomfortable. Best to ignore that. 'I really don't know what to say here, Perry.'

'I just—' She winced at the croak in his voice. _Please_ don't start crying. She never knew what to do with people who were crying. 'If they don't stop, Mum won't be a Potter anymore.'

Charissa followed what he was saying just fine. If their parents didn't reconcile _eventually_ , they would probably end up getting divorced. And if they did, Mum wouldn't be a member of House Potter anymore. Which just led to complications, especially when underage children were involved. _Technically_ , their mother would lose all legal rights to them entirely. Whether or not she could see them at all would be entirely up to Dad's discretion — which meant he could remove her from their lives completely if he was feeling petty and vindictive enough. They _could_ challenge it with the Council of Family Law, but they were almost certain to come down on Dad's side no matter what, just because he was pureblood nobility and Mum was muggleborn. So, yes, she could see why Perry would be worried.

Which was what made this so complicated. His concerns were legitimate, she couldn't just deny the problem. She really had no idea how to help. Finally, after seconds of thought, she said, 'I don't know how likely that is. They've fought before. I asked Mum about it and she said it was nothing to worry about.'

'If it _were_ something to worry about,' he muttered into her shoulder, 'would she tell you?'

That was...actually a very good point. Had she been that perceptive when she was nine? She had a feeling she had been, but she still hadn't expected it. Hmm. Now she had to find something else to say. It took her a minute. 'Well. Let's say it does go as badly as possible. Mum and Dad split up, are so angry with each other they can hardly even stand to be in the same room.' Half the time, it seemed they couldn't stand to be in the same room already. 'I mean. Think about our Mum for a minute. Do you _really_ think Dad would be _capable_ of keeping her away from us, even if he wanted to?'

Perry actually laughed at that. Not the happiest-sounding of laughs, with the slight, unsteady bite of tears on it, but it was a laugh. 'No. She'd probably curse him if he tried.'

Honestly? She wouldn't put it past Mum to straight murder Dad if she felt she had to. Charissa felt she understood her mother well enough to know that between Mum and her children was _not_ a safe place to stand, for anyone. She'd personally seen Mum get defensive over Charissa or her brothers exactly twice, and it was a little funny how scared the people she'd been angry at had gotten. She'd even learned recently that at least _part_ of the reason the _Prophet_ and Dumbledore were now doing their best to avoid antagonising House Potter was less because of her father's influence, and more just because her mother could be _completely terrifying_ when she wanted to be. It was the Gaunts, of all people, who'd told her that — apparently, their grandfather admired Mum or something, which was a weird thought.

But all that probably wasn't something she should explain to her sweet, comparatively innocent little brother.

She gave his shoulder an awkward little squeeze, not bothering to fake a smile since he wouldn't be able to see it anyway. 'So, you see, there's nothing to worry about. Even if things go really bad, that doesn't mean Mum is going to just disappear. You know she loves us. She'll still be around.'

'Yeah.' He clung to her for a little while longer, sniffling a little into the shoulder of her shirt. Eventually he pulled a little away, hesitated a moment. 'Can I, erm—'

Charissa did her _absolute best_ not to let out a sigh, and completely failed. 'You can stay if you want, sure. Just stay on your side.' Her previous mood had already been completely ruined anyway, so it wasn't like it was that much more of an imposition. As long as he didn't spend the whole night clinging to her she didn't care.

'Oh, I'm sorry!' he said, suddenly sounding awkward. 'I know you don't like— I mean, erm—'

'It's fine, Perry.' It wasn't, really, but she'd been manhandled enough her whole life she'd long ago accepted that sometimes there would just be nothing she could do to avoid it. 'Besides, you're my little brother. Pretty sure you're _supposed_ to annoy me at least a little.'

It was too dark to see, but she could practically feel a bright, wry smile on his face. Sliding down from sitting as they'd been, settling in where she'd be stuck with him for the night, he said, 'Thanks, Sis.'

She couldn't help rolling her eyes a little. 'Mm-hmm.'

* * *

Maïa — _A somewhat common name in France, from the mother of Hermes in Greek mythology (which is a funny coincidence, 'cause Hermes happens to be where the name Hermione ultimately comes from). Pronounced roughly " **my** -yuh" — the accented syllable is the same as in Hermione, hence the nickname._

[Why _should_ we care, anyway? What business is it of anyone else's? What difference does it really make in the end?] — _Any assumptions that Charissa is channeling me here are...probably completely accurate. Charissa's confusion by the very existence of homophobia and transphobia is pretty much mine. And I don't even have the excuse of growing up in a culture where they don't exist._


	17. Third Year — February 19th

It took Hermione long enough to notice her that she almost tripped over her.

Not that Luna was generally an easy person to miss, though she _was_ a rather tiny little thing. Hermione had noticed already that short statures were ubiquitous among most British pureblood families, for both sexes, so that wasn't so unusual — they just often had such overbearing personalities she rarely noticed. Luna had a soft, quiet sort of voice as well, enough it could be a bit hard sometimes to understand her in noisier places, like the Great Hall during meal times.

But even so, Luna was _always_ easy to spot. Mostly because she was so ridiculously _colourful_. Outside of the regular markings particular to each house, Hogwarts uniforms were monochromatically dull. The wizardborn students preferentially wore comparatively boring casual wear as well — often unnaturally bright colours, sure, but usually only one or two at a time. But that wasn't good enough for Luna. She had a rather ordinary cloth book bag, sure, much like any other student's, but she'd added so many beads of various materials in every colour of the rainbow that the thing was a glittering, dizzying eye-magnet. Near the end of last year, she'd tried to modify her robes in much the same way, but had been told off by a professor. So instead she did things with her hair. Sometimes beads much like those on her bag plaited through at random, sometimes hairclips charmed with an ethereal shimmering, sometimes just plain colour charms striping her hair apparently at random, different day to day and never the exact same thing twice. And when she wasn't limited to her uniform, she had a predilection to the garish and clashing — if everything was mundane enough to actually be worn around muggles without drawing weird looks, and everything _actually matched_ everything else, Hermione could safely assume Luna was behind on sleep or something. Yes, even without the strange things that sometimes came out of her mouth, Luna was a very, very hard girl to miss.

Which gave nearly tripping over her an extra level of awkwardness. She did look just as garish and ridiculous as usual. She was in trousers — something of a rarity for her — a pair Hermione recognised featuring a dizzying swirl of bright pinks, blues, and oranges. The sleeveless top she was wearing she also recognised, an eye-piercingly bright yellow with little silver scales stitched into the upper left quarter of it, the things bearing subtly shifting swirls of rainbow light, always reminding Hermione of reflections in oil. The right side of her bangs had been colour-charmed a vibrant purple, a large silverish clip toward the back that kept changing shape, but seemed vaguely butterfly-ish. And that was without her normal ridiculous jewelry — the plethora of multicoloured bangles around her wrists (some of which clearly had runes carved into them), mismatched earrings in the shape of likely imaginary creatures, that butterbeer cap necklace she never seemed to go anywhere without (according to Jas, she didn't even take it off to bathe).

Yes, Luna's appearance today was up to her usual standard of absurdity. It had to be some kind of miracle Hermione somehow hadn't seen her sitting in the middle of an aisle in the Arithmancy section of the Library.

Hermione entirely lost her balance, stopping halfway through a step to keep herself from trampling all over the smaller girl. She managed to catch herself with both hands against one of the bookshelves. 'I'm sorry, Luna,' she said, trying not to sound too embarrassed, pushing herself back up straight. 'I didn't see you.'

For a couple seconds, Luna didn't react at all, seemingly not even noticing she'd nearly been run over. Finally she blinked, silvery eyes Hermione knew she'd seen somewhere before flicking up from the thin little book she had opened in her lap. With that familiar tone of slight, pleasant surprise, she said, 'Oh, hello, Hermione. When did you get here?'

'Erm.' Hermione glanced around at the aisle they were in. This was a very particular aisle in the Arithmancy section they'd likely be spending more and more time in over the years: each of the books on the walls contained an arithmantic analysis of a single spell, or a class of similar spells. There were hundreds of the things, stacked floor to ceiling as most of the bookshelves here were, but there really _were_ a lot of spells out there. Hermione had come here looking for a book on the softening charm for this weekend's homework. She had no idea what Luna was doing reading in the middle of the aisle. 'Just now. Do you realise where you are?'

She hadn't been asking the question seriously, but Luna blinked again, turned to gaze around at her surroundings with the same impression of vague surprise. 'Oh. A book pulled at me as I was walking by, and I guess I got distracted.'

Okay. Hermione could sort of understand the sentiment, she guessed. 'Which book?'

Luna flipped the book in her lap over, holding it closed with a finger, showing Hermione the cover. _A Graffical Analysis of I Eþéries Ámynes_.

Hermione didn't recognise the name of that particular sort of magic. But she lost interest in whatever book had so solidly stolen Luna's attention almost right away. By "graphical analysis" she knew the book meant runic arithmancy. She wasn't exactly a fan of runic arithmancy. It just seemed so much more...spotty than proper arithmancy. There were all sorts of magics that couldn't be strictly described with arithmancy — some elemental spells, certain wards and enchantments, any spell cast with an emotional element. To get around the memetic elements of these magics, people just stuck in runes to stand in for the more nebulous, human concepts. Runic arithmancy _could_ be used to design new magic, just like proper arithmancy, but it was much less precise, filled with associative shorthand, and almost always involved very subjective guesswork.

Hermione didn't approve of guesswork.

But she wasn't the one so absorbed in reading it, so she guessed her opinion didn't really matter. ' _I Eþéries Ámynes_?'

'A certain kind of defensive magics,' Luna said with a nod. Hermione had sort of guessed that with the use of _ámyna_. 'Mummy did some work with them, when I was really young. Was one of her avenues of research in that project of hers.'

'Ah.' Hermione knew Missus Lovegood had been researching ways to counter black (and also white) magic without the caster needing to use black or white magic themselves. Vicariously, through Charissa's lessons with her mother, Hermione knew that spells often called "unblockable" truly weren't — the three Unforgivables, for example, could be directly countered with black magic, and blocked or even reflected with white. By the same principle, wounds from black curses _could_ be magically healed perfectly fine, as long as the Healer used black magic to do it. Master Snape knowing advanced black healing magic was why Lady Potter wasn't covered with cursed scars from electrical burns right now. Black blocked white, white blocked black; black countered black, white countered white — it wasn't complicated. There simply wasn't plain, arithmantic magic that could do it, and conventional wisdom said it was impossible. Missus Lovegood had been trying to prove that conventional wisdom wrong.

Until one of her experiments had quite literally blown up in her face. That sort of thing happened to experimental spellcrafters all the time, apparently.

'Well. Would you like to read in an actual chair?'

Luna blinked up at her for a second. 'Maybe that would be more comfortable, yes.'

Helping the other girl up to her feet, Hermione couldn't help shaking her head to herself a bit. So very silly.

In a few minutes, they were back at their usual table — Hermione was unsurprised to see Luna had left her stuff sitting out here. But before Hermione could even open her freshly-acquired book, Luna was talking again. 'If you wanted to tell someone about it, I wouldn't mind.'

Hermione looked up to see Luna was giving her one of those blank, steady stares of hers. Luna's stares were almost as discomfiting as Charissa's. 'Tell you what?'

'Whatever it is you've been so happy about lately.'

She had absolutely no idea what to think about that. So for a few seconds she was silent, just staring back at Luna. 'Ah, you been reading my mind again?'

The slightest impression of an annoyed look crossed Luna's face. 'I told you, I can't read your mind. You've just been more...I don't know, bouncy? Since getting back from break, there's been something on your mind, but you haven't told anyone, so I was curious. And if you would maybe want to tell someone.'

To be completely honest, Hermione had been avoiding telling anyone. She hadn't even told Charissa yet. As far as her parents could tell, everything was going well, but that didn't mean nothing _would_ go wrong. Mum was pretty old to be having children, so it wasn't like things were perfectly sure or anything. She'd intended to wait until after her sister was born in a few months and everything was fine before telling anyone, just in case. She really just didn't want to deal with everyone being awkward about it should anything go wrong.

But, well, she wasn't entirely convinced Luna _couldn't_ read her mind, no matter what she said, and Luna was awkward half the time anyway. There wasn't much harm in telling her.

'Okay, fine.' Hermione said it with a shrug, trying to sound annoyed, but completely incapable of stopping herself from smiling. 'My mum is expecting.'

Luna frowned a little. 'Expecting what?' Before Hermione could say anything, Luna's face broke into one of her strange, dreamy grins. 'Oh, right, muggle idiom. Do you know when?'

'Around the end of May, I think. I didn't actually ask when exactly.' At the slightly confused look on Luna's face, Hermione added, 'Our doctors can guess that pretty accurately, you know, usually within a few days.'

Luna nodded a few times, humming to herself a little. 'From what I've heard, Healers can't do much better than a couple weeks. There are other advantages, of course, but I've long suspected an interdisciplinary approach might benefit in a lot of areas, not just Healing. Muggles have a lot of very good ideas, and some of their methods are even superior to ours.'

That...was an oddly enlightened thing for a pureblood to be saying. This was Luna, though, odd was practically expected. 'Yes, well.' She shrugged again. 'Kind of annoyed I'll be stuck here the whole time, but what can you do.'

'You could take your exams early.'

Hermione stared at her, again silent for long seconds. That... She hadn't even thought of that. She had already read ahead into the next year in most of her classes, and while she was still a bit behind on where she'd have to be by the end of the year for the practical parts for a couple, it was still only _February_. That wasn't a bad idea at all. If she buckled down and worked at it, she could probably take her exams over a month early and not risk her position at the top of the class overmuch. Though, her margin had been steadily shrinking anyway — she'd always been weaker in practice than theory, and the practical portion of exams were being weighted gradually heavier as they went on. She wouldn't be surprised if she lost the top rank in fourth year. But that wasn't the point. 'I might at that. I'd ask Professor Flitwick about that, I'm assuming.'

'He'd be the one to go to, yes.' And then Luna stared at her for a few seconds more. One of her weirder stares — it was obvious Luna was looking in her direction, but her eyes didn't seem to be _quite_ in focus, as though she were looking at Hermione but not looking at her at the same time. It was weird. She didn't have too long to be too weirded out by it though. With a note of confident finality, Luna said, 'You'll be a good elder sister.' Then she turned back to her book.

Erm. Okay? That had been...sort of weird. She never knew how to react when Luna did things like that. She was never sure whether to take it seriously or not. So, after a few seconds of dithering, she decided to respond with a joke — or, really, a half-joke. 'I thought I asked you not to be looking at my future.'

And now Luna looked slightly annoyed. Only slightly, but it was there. 'I can't see the future, Hermione.'

Okay. Hermione was just confused now. 'I thought you said you were a Seer.' Well, okay, to be completely accurate, it wasn't _Luna_ who had said she was a Seer — Ginny had been the one to mention it. But Luna had been right there at the time, and hadn't actually denied it.

'I am.' Something about how matter-of-factly Luna said that left Hermione feeling vaguely annoyed — she'd freely admit she still wasn't comfortable with the idea of Seers in general. 'But what you've yet come to understand, Hermione, is that there are different kinds of Seers. It's not the future that speaks to me. Not that I've noticed, at least.'

Hermione found herself oddly conflicted. On the one hand, it was something she didn't know, and she was perhaps pathologically curious, if such a thing were possible. But on the other, it was _Divination_. She didn't know a lot about Divination, granted, but everything she'd heard so far had done absolutely nothing but annoy her. It didn't help how it was a field of magic that came entirely as an inborn talent — so far as it was useful, and it was far too subjective to be very often, it couldn't really be learned. Skepticism honestly seemed a bit peculiar when _talking about magic_ , but she couldn't really bring herself to trust in something if _no one_ could even begin to explain how it worked. No thanks. So she changed the subject. 'Random question, but I've been having the weird feeling that your eyes are really familiar. Which is a strange thing to think, because I didn't even know that shade of silver was a colour eyes _could_ be before.'

It wasn't really a question, but Luna answered easily enough. 'Oh, you've met my Great-Uncle Garrick. It is a rare eye colour, yes, and not even common on that side of the family, but we both got them.'

'Okay. Then, who's your Great-Uncle Garrick?'

'Oh,' Luna said, a vague sort of smile on her face, 'Charissa and the Potters should be in his shop right about now.'

For long seconds, all Hermione could do was stare at her. Again. When she found her voice, all she managed was, 'You've got to be kidding me.'

Luna just smiled at her.

Well. She certainly had met him before.

* * *

Her second time walking into Ollivander's, Charissa found the little room far more crowded. Which was a bit odd, considering no one had been inside when they'd arrived — last time she'd only been with Mum, but Dad and her brothers were here this time too. Mum and Charissa were planning a visit anyway and, since Linden was eleven now, they'd decided they may as well get his wand while they were at it. Dad and Perry had come along as well, for whatever reason. The little space at the front of the shop _really_ wasn't intended for five people.

They'd barely been there for a few seconds before Master Ollivander was appearing, greeting them in that breathy, ethereal voice of his, reciting the attributes of the wands they carried — he even did both of Mum's. After the barest of pleasantries, his unnerving focus was directed entirely on Linden, and he was off searching for wands. Compared to Charissa's own experience, Linden was presented a match in an anticlimactically short period of time — it was the second or third he touched that flared with magic, throwing silver and gold sparks into the air, an almost manic grin on his face. The grin only flickered away when her brother's new spruce wand was taken to be wrapped up, leaving him looking almost grumpy.

Charissa could understand that. She remembered how she'd nearly had to restrain herself from slapping Ollivander for daring to take the thing back. Wands could do weird things to people.

Once the transaction was finished, and Ollivander had given them something that sounded very much like a dismissal, Dad chuckled at him a little. 'That wasn't actually all the business we had today.'

'Oh.' For a moment, Ollivander stared at Dad absently. His silvery eyes then turned to Perry. 'He's a little young, isn't he?'

Charissa stood from the chair she'd claimed by the windows, stepped forward a little. 'It was for me, actually.'

And now Ollivander was blinking at her. 'I'm sorry, Miss, but I'm not sure I understand. You just confirmed earlier the wand I sold you over two years ago now — acacia and unicorn, don't think I don't remember — was still agreeing with you.'

'Well, yes and no,' she said, shrugging to herself a little. She wasn't entirely sure how to explain this. 'I don't know. I ran into a bit of a problem one day at the duelling club, and Professor Flitwick said I should come see you.'

Instantly, he asked, 'What sort of problem?'

She hesitated for a moment. 'I'm not sure how to explain it. Is there somewhere we can go I can show you?'

Ollivander was frowning now, a peculiar look of concern, as though he were worried over the well-being of her wand. After a moment, he nodded. 'We can go in back. Zoë is working, but she won't mind the interruption.'

In the back of the room, hidden behind rows of stacked up boxes of wands, was a thin door, narrow enough even her brothers had to slip in one at a time. The room it opened up into was bigger than the rest of the store. All along one wall were dozens and dozens of lengths of wood at various stages of preparation — some were carved down to simple impressions of wands, but there were a few rough branches seemingly yanked straight from a tree. Another wall was filled with cabinets floor to ceiling, bearing labels marking the contents to be various materials or, in a few cases, runic diagrams. The wall at the back was lined with equipment, most of which was unrecognisable to her, but she did notice tools meant to carve runes into wood, though much more miniaturised than she'd seen before. Dozens and dozens of runes were worked into the stone floor — from the look of it, wards to limit interactions with ambient magic, something that looked really similar to duelling wards (which were in Egyptian, so she couldn't actually read them), and she thought those might be detection and analysis spells. Not positive.

Hunched over a desk against the far wall, her back to them, was a woman with incredibly messy dirty-blonde hair. Charissa couldn't see from this angle very well, but she thought it likely the woman was working on a wand. She also got the impression the woman wasn't quite properly dressed for company — she only seemed to be wearing brief shorts and a thin vest — but, from what Ollivander had said earlier, she hadn't expected company, so she guessed that was their fault.

'Zoë, I have—'

But that was all Ollivander managed to get out — without even turning her head, the woman _shushed_ him. 'Almost done. Two runes.' Charissa had noticed before that her wand was absolutely littered with runes, so small they weren't even visible without looking carefully. Probably was working on a wand, then.

With a slightly amused cast to his face, Ollivander turned to Dad. 'Excuse me, Lord Potter, perhaps we should just give my granddaughter a moment.'

Huh. She hadn't known Ollivander had ever married, much less actually had children. Weird.

A few short moments later, the woman let out a loud, 'Ah ha!' She sprung to her feet, spun around— Then she nearly jumped into the air when she realised they weren't alone. 'Oh, sorry.' Charissa abruptly noticed the woman wasn't as old as Charissa had thought at first; maybe twenty or so? 'I was, erm...' She indicated the dark-coloured wand she was holding in one hand, shrugging a little awkwardly.

'Yes,' Ollivander said, 'Zoë here came into an apprenticeship with me straight after her OWLs. Chances are—' He turned slightly to Charissa and her brothers, an eyebrow fractionally raised. '—come the day your children walk through our door, they will be buying their wands from her.'

Yeesh. Children. That was a scary thought.

Without a word, Ollivander started forward, summoning the newly-crafted wand to his hand with the slightest of beckoning motions — Zoë looked slightly annoyed with him snatching it from her like that. He stepped into the duelling wards, bending over to tap them into being as he crossed the line. It was a bit...intimidating to watch, really. In a confusing maelstrom of light and noise, Ollivander powered through dozens of charms with shocking speed, a few times conjuring targets to then blast into rubble. After maybe thirty seconds of staggering spellwork, Ollivander abruptly stopped, dropped the wards again.

In the same flat, breathy voice, he said, 'I wouldn't be embarrassed to sell this.' Didn't sound like much of a compliment to Charissa, but by the way Zoë started beaming, maybe Ollivander didn't usually offer much. Ollivander casually tossed the wand back to Zoë, who caught it with an easy flourish. 'When you have an hour, varnish and seal it, and I'll put it on the shelves.' Zoë was smiling so wide Charissa was a little surprised the corners of her lips weren't bleeding yet.

'Is that your first?' asked Mum from behind her.

Twirling the wand between her fingers, Zoë shook her head. 'No, Missus, ah...'

In something of a stage whisper, Ollivander said, 'This is the Lord and Lady Potter, and their children.'

Zoë's eyes and mouth both widened a little in obvious surprise. Then she glanced down at herself. Looking a little uncomfortable, she shuffled in place a little, crossing her arms over her chest. 'Ah, well, it's my fifteenth Grandfather thought was good enough. Three of those he didn't think were quite perfect, so they're not in the shop, so I guess twelve total.'

'Getting rather consistent now,' Ollivander said with a shrug. 'Still a little slow.'

'Yes, well, maybe when I'm _your_ age I could finish a quality wand in _four days_. I'm afraid that's beyond the reach of us mere mortals.'

Ollivander just shook his head a little. 'Come into the circle with me, Miss, show me this problem you're having.'

After the slightest of hesitations — the idea of demonstrating wandwork to _Ollivander_ , of all people, was making her slightly self-conscious — she stepped up into the circle, and he closed the wards around them. She slipped her wand from the holster at her wrist. 'You might want to be ready with a frame-freezing charm, sir.' He nodded, pulling his own from seemingly nowhere. 'Okay, well... It was just a practice duel in the club, you know. I was fighting this fifth-year, and he was a bit better than I was expecting. Actually knew how to move, you know. So I was just laying at him heavy with _lūdiōrum_ , you know, like this.' This spell she could do perfectly well silently, but that was cheating: it didn't technically _have_ an incantation. With each rapid flick of her wand, a thin stream of curving red flame shot out toward the wardline, dispersing into nonexistence with little flashes of yellow light.

She stopped, drawing her wand arm back and down in preparation for the next spell.'Trying to get him to stop and shield, you see. Once he did — that flame-freezing charm, now.' She could do this perfectly well silently too, but that was also cheating: she was just disproportionately good with fire magic. With absolutely everything she had, she focused only on thoughts of light and heat, forced a torrent of energy down her wand arm. With two wide swishes to either side, the entire warded circle filled with chest-high flames burning a deep red-orange. Simple fire, without any added magical properties, but still quite good, she thought.

But her opponent had managed to get a flame-freezing charm out in time, and had immediately sent a few hexes right at her. Her eyes had been too dazzled by the bright fire all around to see them well enough to deflect, or even dodge. So she'd yanked her magic away from powering the flames, twisting it into a basic shield charm, but when the incantation was still only half past her lips the magic in her grip suddenly spasmed, popping out of her control with a sickening lurch, a shower of red sparks falling uselessly to the now fire-free floor.

And the sleeve of her robes inexplicably burst into flames. Okay, _that_ hadn't happened last time. Grumbling to herself a little, she smothered the fire easily enough with a quick charm, before she'd even started feeling the heat. Her robes were a bit scorched now, though. She sent Linden, who was entirely failing to hide his snickering, a sharp look.

But Ollivander just said, 'Ah, yes, that can happen.'

'What can happen?'

'Acacia is, how shall I say, a very _sensitive_ wood. It's perfectly suited to delicate, intricate spellwork, especially in cooperation with unicorn hair. Which isn't to say _powerful_ magic can't be done with it...' He shrugged a little, dismissing the duelling wards with a wave of his hand. 'The problem is one of agility, in switching rapidly from one type of magic to another. That elemental fire spell of yours — very impressive, by the way — is a quite different sort of spell than that shield charm, and both take a fair amount of power. Going from one to the other too quickly gives a wand such as yours whiplash, so to speak.'

'Oh.' Charissa glanced down at her wand in her hand, frowning a little. Doing that sort of thing was sort of _necessary_ to duel properly, and would only become moreso as she got better at it. So this was kind of a problem. 'Is there any way to fix that?'

Ollivander shook his head. 'I'd recommend you simply use a secondary wand.'

Oh. Well.

While Charissa took a moment to process that, Ollivander turned to her parents. 'Generally, when fitting a wand for a specific purpose such as this, I recommend having it made to order, so to speak — that way, we can be absolutely sure the wand will suit her. Especially in the case of a witch as powerful and talented as your daughter, as such individuals tend to be more exacting in their requirements, if you follow. I can determine appropriate materials right now with just a few minutes, and I'm not working on any special orders currently, so the wand itself could be ready by next weekend.

'It will be more expensive, obviously,' Ollivander said with a little shrug. 'For such customised wands, I use a wider range of methods and materials as needed, which can affect pricing. And, of course, as this will be her second wand, the Ministry subsidy I take to keep student wand prices so low would not apply.'

It was Dad who asked, sounding more curious than anything — Charissa was sure it would take a truly exorbitant price for him to refuse. 'How much, exactly?'

Ollivander hesitated for an instant. 'Roughly a hundred, maybe twenty in either direction, depending on the specific materials I end up using.'

Charissa couldn't help wincing a little — she knew the value of a galleon more than well enough to understand that wasn't exactly cheap. But Dad just shrugged it off, so apparently he didn't much care.

Without another word, Ollivander shuffled her over to another place on the floor, just over the detection and analysis runes. A gesture from a wandless hand, and the runes flashed red and blue for the shortest of instants, dying out an instant later to be replaced by a rainbow of colours springing into existence in the air around her. Charissa had absolutely no idea what the soft, glowing lights surrounding her in curving, contorting shapes meant, or even how to begin interpreting them, but from the way Ollivander was scrutinising them she assumed there must be something to it. Even Mum seemed to be reading something out of it, judging by the way her eyes were sliding around, the slight frown of concentration. After a few seconds, Ollivander nodded and said, 'Any ideas?'

'Can't use a light wood.' Charissa nearly jumped — she hadn't noticed Zoë moving behind her. When the younger Ollivander came back into view, Charissa saw she must have slipped out at some point to throw on a robe. That would explain why Charissa had lost track of her, at least. 'Far too much going on in her upper register. Thing would probably burst into flames, no matter how good the channelling runes.'

'Erm.' Charissa hesitated for a moment when both Ollivanders turned to stare at her, before deciding to just ask. 'Upper register?'

Ollivander shrugged, his eyes sliding up to the ceiling, as though trying to think of how to explain. 'Your magic doesn't always flow the exact same way, you see. Like your voice, it has a few different qualities you use in different situations. Rarely, people will only have two registers, but the vast majority of mages have three. Or, sometimes...' Another wave of Ollivander's hand, a short incantation Charissa didn't recognise, and the lights around her shifted, some vanishing and some expanding. It didn't really seem any different to her. Dad didn't react either, and her brothers had long ceased paying attention by now.

But Mum's face had gone oddly slack, muttering a soft, 'What the...' that she never finished. Zoë's mouth dropped open for a second before she pointed up at the lights surrounding Charissa and near-shouted, 'The fuck is _that_?'

Charissa was pretty sure that was on the list of bad things to hear from a wandmaker in this sort of situation.

But the elder Ollivander just shrugged, seeming completely unconcerned. 'That would be her fourth register. Unusual, sure, but not unheard of. If I were to put you here, Lady Potter,' he added over his shoulder, 'I would wager you would have one as well.'

'That wasn't what I'm confused about.' Mum moved away from the clump of Potters waiting by the wall, until she was standing only a few steps away from Charissa. She ran her finger along a swath of glowing, pulsing blue above Charissa's left shoulder. 'What _is_ this? And this?' she added, indicating another section of braided red and purple, a little higher up. 'Correct me if I'm wrong, but this looks like Fae magic.' Charissa blinked, looked again at the incomprehensible glowing lights — didn't look any different than the rest to her, honestly.

But Ollivander just shrugged again. 'Can't tell you what it does, but it's definitely a Faetouch. I don't think it's a cause for concern. It's not hurting her.' Oh, well, that wasn't bad at all then. Some Faetouches were extremely useful. She hadn't noticed anything, but maybe she'd come into it later. 'However,' Ollivander continued, 'having that much Fae magic in her fourth register limits appropriate wand materials somewhat. Wouldn't you say, Zoë?'

Zoë nodded, frowning up at the multi-coloured lights. 'We'd need Faetouched wood, definitely. I think...hazel, maybe?'

'Hazel? Not beech? Ash? Rowan? Alder?'

'No, no, I—' Zoë froze, in the middle of shaking her head. 'Oh, maybe rowan.'

'Grab a blank in hazel and rowan. Oh, and do we have Faetouched willow? One of those.'

Charissa wasn't entirely sure how she felt about those options. She'd hardly call herself an expert when it came to such things, but she knew rowan had a strongly protective, fiercely Light reputation — yeah, that didn't sound right. Hazel had a similar reputation, if a bit less strongly. Willow was often thought of as being for Healers, which also didn't sound right, but that was more a cultural association than it was a rule. Magically augmented willow trees had a reputation for turning out rather sinister, so that likely didn't mean much. One of Mum's wands, the first one she bought, was willow, and that certainly didn't stop her from being exceptionally dangerous with it. She was aware the core did matter, and even then the general associations with these things didn't always hold true. But she couldn't help thinking it anyway. Instead of comment on any of that, while Zoë went to sort through wood and Ollivander pulled open a few of those cabinets, she asked, 'Is wandwood not normally Faetouched?'

'Not usually, no,' Ollivander answered from behind her. 'All wandwood is, to some degree, magical, of course, generally absorbed from sitting over a confluence of ambient magic somewhere or other. Faetouched trees grow only at those few places in the world where the Fae have crossed from their world into ours. We here in the Gaelic Nations have a few more of those for our size than most regions in the world, even active more recently, but they are rare enough some Faetouched woods are all but impossible to find.'

'We do have willow,' Zoë said, reapproaching with three roughly-hewn wand-shaped objects in one hand.

'Ah, excellent.' And Ollivander walked back in front of her, looking somewhat ridiculous with a dozen jars in various colours and sizes floating along behind him. For the next couple minutes, the master and apprentice whispered back and forth at each other, holding one of the woods with one of the cores, glancing up at the colours still floating around Charissa, then switching woods and cores around, arguing the whole while. Charissa hardly followed any of it — they weren't bothering with complete sentences, most of the time. At one point Zoë tossed one over her shoulder, clearly muttering, 'not rowan,' the length of wood floating on back to its place seemingly all by itself.

At least Charissa had been right about that much.

Before too long, both Ollivanders were apparently in agreement, and again moved to stand right in front of her. 'We have a few ideas, we need to check how they look quick. Not all of them are the usual three cores I usually work with — I uphold those three are most useful most consistently, but sometimes something else is called for. It's a simple spell I need to do to check each one. If you would give me your hand?'

The process went by quickly. Ollivander would wrap a strip of some core material — most of them were camouflaged by some protective spell, she couldn't really even see what they were — around one of the two lengths of wood, then press it into her hand. Once her fingers were curled around, he'd surround her hand with both of his, the static wash of some sort of wandless spell washing over her an instant later, the glowing lights still floating around shifting and changing colour. These weren't _wands_ she was holding, exactly, but the juxtaposition of magical materials still affected her somewhat, the slightest of tingles running up her arm. One combination slapped her in the face with the most powerful sense of _wrongness_ the second she touched it, she flat refused to even hold it.

After six or seven attempts, Ollivander lingered over one for considerably longer, scanning those inscrutable lights. This one didn't feel any different to her, really. This one she could actually see: folded over the length of willow was a long, sharply angled, blue-black feather. There must be some sort of protective spell over it, though, since she couldn't actually feel it at all, just a weird, indistinct sense of pressure. A few seconds of staring, and Ollivander turned, giving Zoë a look over his shoulder.

Her voice sounding slightly distant, she said, 'Looks right to me. But, you know, she'll need—'

'I know. Get a contract out.' While Zoë moved to the cabinets, Ollivander let go, taking the wood and feather with him, dismissed the floating lights with a flick of his fingers. Then his wand was in his free hand, a small, high table conjured a short distance away in a flash. Then he was turning to Charissa's parents again — she tried not to be annoyed with that. 'Channelling the upper register can get a bit complicated at times. Especially with the Faetouch your daughter has adding a few discordant overtones, it would be almost impossible to properly eliminate all the interference. The wand wouldn't be unusable, exactly, and would certainly handle it better than the one she already has. It just wouldn't be as efficient as ideal.'

It looked like Dad wasn't exactly following the point — which Charissa certainly couldn't blame him for. But Mum just nodded. 'You need her blood.'

Charissa started at that. _What_?

Dad looked just as surprised as her, already a few shades into angry. 'What do you mean, _her blood_?'

Before Ollivander could say anything, Mum had already turned to Dad, the slightest tone of exasperation on her voice. 'It's perfectly safe, James. He just puts a little blood in the resin to alter the wand's harmonics a bit. It isn't even technically blood magic. The same thing was done with my second.' Dad looked only slightly mollified, but Mum turned back to Ollivander anyway. 'If I understand correctly, it wouldn't interfere if I put a tracer on it? Not that I don't trust you, but...'

Ollivander shook his head. 'No, it wouldn't make a difference.'

A completely reasonable precaution. Charissa was all for it. She wasn't at all comfortable with the idea of leaving any of her blood here, even if it was with Ollivander, of all people. One of the very first things people were told to protect themselves was to never, ever, _ever_ let anyone have their blood. For some time after it left the body — until it dried, or was sterilised somehow — a person's blood was still magically tied to them, in a sense always a part of them, no matter the physical distance. It was comparatively easy to exploit that connection to do absolutely nasty things to someone without the victim even noticing. This was such common knowledge even the first-years who didn't have a mother licensed to practise blood magic were well aware.

Though apparently not muggleborns. Hermione hadn't known until she'd told Charissa about muggle blood banks in second year, and Charissa had maybe overreacted to the implications a bit.

Some perfectly legitimate things did require a person's blood, of course. In the Noble Houses, it was the most trusted, but least used, method of personal identification. A few potions required blood from the drinker, or a donor or, rarely, both. The alchemical ritual Jas would be undergoing in a couple years now required blood. There were all kinds of laws involving exactly how to go about it, in situations where the one using the blood and the owner weren't the same person. There was a contract, mostly intended to simply leave a paper trail should someone need to prove abuse later, presumably the parchment Zoë was laying on the little table just now. Any excess not used had to be promptly destroyed. And, well, there were _severe_ penalties for casting any sort of blood magic on someone without their explicit permission. Up to quite literally forever in Azkaban.

She didn't trust Ollivander with her blood. At all. Not necessarily because she thought Ollivander would curse her — if only because he must know Mum would be, suffice to say, _not pleased_ if he did. But there was also the possibility _someone else_ could get their hands on her blood before he was done with it. She assumed that was why Mum wanted the tracer in the first place: if Ollivander told her it went missing she could hunt down whoever had taken it rather easily, hopefully before they get around to the cursing part. She still wasn't happy with the idea, but it made her feel a little better.

Mum and Dad took turns pouring over the parchment on the little table before, visibly reluctant, Dad signed the thing. It only took a few seconds and a couple charms for Ollivander to draw a bit of her blood into a little glass vial — Charissa hardly even felt it. He then set the vial on the little table, stepped back a bit. Mum then performed one of the more interesting examples of spellcasting Charissa had ever seen. It started as pretty simple runic casting, Mum drawing a few inscrutable glowing shapes into the air. Charissa thought the runes might be Belẽs, but she didn't know a single rune in Belẽs, so she wasn't entirely sure. After she drew maybe four of the things, they vanished, replaced by a tight little five-pointed star suspended in the air around the vial of blood, glowing with a strange mix of purple and black light — strange because those _weren't_ the red-orange and white Mum's runic casting usually came in, and Charissa didn't actually know if that was relevant or not. Mum shortly made her way around the pentacle, drawing a black-purple rune or two at each point. Then, with a flick of her wand, the figure vanished. Charissa's blood in the vial glowed with a soft, whitish light for a short moment before quickly dimming again.

Dad and her brothers seemed to react to that bit of magic much as she had — that was sort of interesting and pretty, but none of them really understood enough about runic or blood magic for them to get much more than that. The Ollivanders, however, were giving Mum a pair of really weird looks. The elder had slipped into his characteristic sort of intense focus, something visibly calculating in his eyes. The younger was just staring with open fascination. Mum winked at Zoë, then turned to step away from the table.

Charissa completely failed to hold in a smirk: Zoë _blushed_. Someone was a bit impressed with her mother, apparently.

* * *

[ _I_ _Eþéries Ámynes_ ] (Greek: Οι Αιθέριες Άμυνες) — _lit. "ethereal defences", a class of white protective magics_

 _ámyna_ (Greek: άμυνα) — _Um, in case it wasn't obvious, that's the singular._ Ámynes _is plural._

[there are different kinds of Seers. It's not the future that speaks to me.] — _Exactly what kind of Seer Luna is will be made clear later. In brief, low-level empathic telepathy and (unconscious) psychometry._

 _lūdiōrum_ — _Shortened from_ flammae lūdiōrum _, plural of_ flamma lūdiī _, literally "performer's (i.e. duellist's) flame." It's basically filler, a simple spell used in a duel to keep a good rhythm going, and distract the opponent when necessary. It isn't completely harmless if it hits someone directly, but isn't usually used for that purpose._

[Ministry subsidy] — _The Ministry covers all but seven galleons of the cost of a first wand for any British citizen. If, say, Gabrielle Delacour decided she wanted to go to Ollivander's for her wand, she'd have to pay more like thirty galleons. One of the terms in a deal the Ministry made with the Noble House of Ollivander centuries ago (long before it was even called the Ministry), in an attempt to basically claim them as their national wandmakers. With House Ollivander being a cadet branch of the larger Elaíoin family, who were among the first to bring wands to Europe and have long been considered some of the best craftsmen and enchanters on the Continent, it was considered an early victory in cultural politics, so to speak. (Just to clarify, Ollivander_ _ **is**_ _a Noble House, with a seat on the Wizengamot and everything, but the wandmaker Garrick Ollivander is_ _ **not**_ _Lord Ollivander — one of his cousins is.)_

Faetouch — _Any plant or animal modified by certain kinds of Fae magic in any way is said to be Faetouched. It's a general term: exactly what effect a Faetouch has varies from case to case. Faetouched humans are comparatively rare, but do exist — in Charissa's immediate social circle, Luna (and, in this fic, Seers as a rule) is also Faetouched._

Belẽs (IPA: /βʰɛl̥ẽs̚/) — _Basically? The ancient Minoan Civilisation of Crete. This is a somewhat more modern term in the attributive (like "Chinese" is the attributive of China). Pronounced roughly "vel-hace"._

* * *

 _If any of you are curious, I was enough of a nerd to actually come up with how much a galleon is worth. We are told at a couple points in HP that The Daily Prophet costs a knut a day. Let's assume the London Times, at about fifty pence in the same time period, has a roughly equivalent price. Assuming one knut is equivalent to fifty pence, and with there being 493 (29*17) knuts in a galleon, one galleon is about £246.50 (at 1994 exchange rates, roughly $364.82). That would mean a new wand, at seven galleons, is worth roughly £1725.50 ($2553.75), comparable to a decent used car. Since you're expected to use the same wand your whole life, that's not unreasonable. The one thousand galleon prize for the Triwizard Tournament is a very respectable three and a half hundred thousand dollars. Charissa's special, custom-made wand Ollivander estimates will be between eighty and a hundred twenty galleons. That comes to £19,720 - £29,580 ($29,185.60 - $43,778.40). So, yes, James is just dropping roughly $35k on a second wand for his daughter on a whim here, but the Potters are nobility and filthy rich, so he doesn't really care. (It doesn't hurt that he assumes she intends to duel professionally out of Hogwarts for a few years, which she'd practically need a secondary wand for anyway.)_

 _In case you're thinking that pricing seems way off, you're right, I made a couple bad assumptions. Most critically, I assumed The Daily Prophet and The Times sell their dailies for the same price. But they wouldn't. The Times actually had legitimate competitors, and would have likely been priced **lower** , especially since, in 1994, they were in the middle of a pricing war. This means I probably **undervalued** the galleon. But I think we can all agree I got it close enough, dammit._

 _All prices that may come up in future can be assumed to be accurate to this exchange rate._


	18. Third Year — Spring

_February 26th, 1994_

* * *

Lily was very, very tired.

She stood in the back room, Garrick's messy little workshop, for the fourth time in her life. Walls, floor, and ceiling all sizzling with enchantments. There the master wandcrafter was, a freshly-made wand balanced across both hands, explaining to a doubtful Charissa exactly why a thunderbird feather wand was perfectly suited to someone especially talented in fire elemental magic. Not complicated, really. Phoenixes, as most everyone knew, were beings of a sort of homogeneous harmony, or at least a hierarchical one, everyone and everything in its place, fulfilling its purpose. Their feathers, then, worked best in wands used by mages who were magically similar in some way. Thunderbirds, no matter how alike they might be in many ways, were instead beings of complementary harmony, independent actors working separately, chaotic, often at odds, but ultimately contributing toward the same goal. The _fewer_ magical similarities a mage had with these less predictable cousins of the phoenix, the more likely a thunderbird core wand would prove suitable. Seemed a little counter-intuitive at the surface, but it's obvious with a little thought.

Lily could tell her daughter, despite her outward hesitation, was nearly quivering with excitement. She could feel it already, her wand, even though she hadn't even touched it yet — Lily could see them reaching out to each other, tendrils of magic stretching across the air between. Garrick had done good work, not that Lily had really expected otherwise. This wasn't really a moment she felt like being too much a killjoy in, so she was trying not to show how _tired_ she was, how hard it was to be here right now, awake and moving. Much harder than usual. But, then, it always was, on the day after the full moon. She was more familiar with werewolves than most, had a few tricks up her sleeve for other lunar-aligned magics as well, so they always had her on call that night.

And she was completely exhausted.

Charissa's fingers touched willow, and there was a flash of instinctive binding. Charissa's magic flowing into the wand, following the path forged by her blood, thunderbird magic, focused through willow, reaching back, intertwining itself with flesh and magic. It was always interesting to watch this. Two separate magics fraying, breaking apart at the edges into hundreds of different threads, meeting the other, intertwining, braiding together into the most seamless of cloths, until the two were hardly distinguishable from the other. The room was filled with a soft, blue light, sharp, chuckling birdsong, ecstatic giggling from Charissa. Which struck her as a little weird instantly — how often did Charissa, cold and self-contained as she was, really _giggle_?

In a few minutes, Lily had paid Ollivander, and led Charissa back outside. Actually had to guide her out pulling at her wrist, since she seemed incapable of doing anything but staring at her new wand with a dopey grin on her face. Lily didn't even bother walking over to an apparition point — a single _arūt_ drawn into the air, a stab of magic channeled through it, piercing a temporary hole in the weak, over-extended ward, and Lily was pulling the both of them into the black.

An instant later, they were back in sunlight, their feet softly touching down in the center of the warded circle outside their home. Lily let go of Charissa — who was glancing around in confusion, the apparation apparently having snapped her back to reality — and walked over to the wardline, brought the duelling wards up with a tap of her wand and a jab of power.

She always found duelling wards slightly disorienting. She'd developed unusual magical sensitivity comparatively early — she still remembered riding the usual carriage the first day of her fifth year at Hogwarts, when she'd actually _seen_ the wards, _seen_ magic for the first time. She hadn't even known that was possible before that moment, but she now knew the ability was not unheard of, if somewhat rare. Magic was laid over the physical world, semi-transparent, layered shells of essence surrounding and penetrating substance. By now, she'd long gotten used to it. But duelling wards such as these were specifically designed to block all magic, to completely isolate the inside from the outside. By now, the sight of the physical world beyond the wards, without seeing the layered colours of magic throughout, without _feeling_ it, just seemed a bit...odd. Like it wasn't even there.

'Erm.' She turned over to her daughter, who was giving her a blank stare, fresh willow wand in hand. 'What are you doing?'

Lily made her best effort at a playful smirk — at least, one that didn't show how _tired_ she was at the moment. 'Thought you'd like to give your new wand a test drive.'

Charissa blinked at her for a couple seconds, then shrugged. 'Give me a minute.' Charissa turned toward the wardline, and started casting. Simple ones at first, stinging and concussion jinxes striking the wards with brief flashes of light, one after the other, but slowly working up to more serious charms. None of them were that inherently impressive, but Lily was sure most would raise eyebrows at a thirteen-year-old casually shooting off blasting curses like that.

Far as she could tell, Lily was the only one who realised just how dangerous Charissa was. This wasn't new knowledge, either — she'd come to understand exactly what her daughter was when she'd been two, maybe only a little older. It was hard to explain exactly how. Lily hadn't had anyone in mind to compare her against at the time but, after her boys, she knew Charissa had been unusually quiet and...she thought _detached_ might be the word. It wasn't until Charissa's mind and magic developed further that Lily saw, quite suddenly, exactly what she was dealing with.

It was obvious to most anyone that Charissa had inherited her talent with fire magic. Filius had mentioned once she had exceptional control with simple fire charms, even as a first year. Just this fall, one of Remus's letters had described how, when he'd exposed each of his third-year students to a boggart one by one, whatever Charissa had seen — Remus didn't say and Charissa never mentioned it — had affected her enough she'd instantly set the creature ablaze. Silently and, as far as Remus could tell, unintentionally. But Lily had known this almost right away. Even without finding Charissa playing around with candles almost habitually over her childhood. She'd been able to _feel_ it in her, nearly since the moment she was born.

But it wasn't the same fire in Charissa that was in Lily. It'd been during one of her very, very few temper tantrums, when she'd been two, that Lily had felt it. Even _seen_ it. Her daughter's magic breathed and grew like fire, yes. But it was black. It was cold, cold as ice, hard, frozen flame more likely to result in instant frostbite than anything else. And, when Charissa started getting more fluently vocal over the next couple years, it became very obvious that wasn't the only thing that was different about her.

James didn't understand. Lily had tried to explain it, in the simplest, least ambiguous terms possible — moderated a little bit so she didn't scare him _too_ much, which was probably _why_ he didn't understand, but oh well. There were too many things about her baby girl that were chillingly familiar. Stories she'd read from history books, both magical and not. It was obvious, had been obvious for years, that Charissa was a dark witch, had been from birth. James could plug his ears and cover his eyes all he wanted, but pretending didn't make it less true. But Lily was afraid it was worse than that. It wouldn't take very much. One too many seductive half-truths whispered in her ear. One too many times something in her life didn't go the way she wanted. One too many situations Lily didn't anticipate, couldn't prepare her for properly.

Lily was absolutely terrified that, one day a decade from now, she'd walk into the Department to find her daughter's picture up on the kill-or-detain board.

So, ever since, she'd been doing absolutely everything she could to prevent it. Even as Lily first started her daughter on things so simple as learning to read, she'd started a campaign of conditioning she'd designed herself. She'd started teaching Charissa Rules. Rules that must be observed, Or Else. Some of these were simple — everything from taking care of her brothers to a whole list of things to be avoided that were just plain illegal — but others were less directly obvious. Charissa would never come to the same emotional understanding most could, Lily had been sure of that. Charissa would never _feel_ the base moral impulses that guided most everyone else. She just wasn't built like that. So Lily had made sure that, if Charissa couldn't _feel_ it, she would at least _know_ it, had done her best to arrange a sufficient ethical framework entirely out of what is practical, what is reasonable.

Sometimes she wondered if this judgement she had of her daughter's character made her a horrible mother. Sometimes she was sure she was just being realistic. Others, she wasn't entirely confident there was a difference.

She was pretty sure it'd been going well so far. Not without slip-ups, a few of which stood out. For example, at the tenth birthday party for Lord Parkinson's great-granddaughter, Charissa had beat on the birthday girl rather badly. Everyone had long fallen into the habit of downplaying just how bad it was — to hear most people tell of it, it couldn't have been much more than a good slap. But no, Charissa had done a fair amount of damage before she'd finally been dragged off. Nothing healing charms couldn't easily fix, but enough the Parkinson girl was still visibly nervous around her. She'd be completely unsurprised if Charissa hexed Linden into the Hospital Wing within a couple months of their shared time at Hogwarts — they didn't get along. And then there was that time Charissa had set Draco on fire, and had been completely unapologetic about it. Lily had been very worried about that one, until she'd found out _why_.

Because, for the most part, Charissa always had a good reason. The situations with those three, for instance. Despite herself, Lily had been privately pleased, just a little, when Charissa had thrashed the Parkinson girl — the little twit had been parroting her family's habitual pureblood supremacist rhetoric, saying very impolitic things about Lily right to Charissa's face. As much as it pained her to admit it, Linden would probably deserve it too. A lot of what Linden (and James) saw as good-natured playfulness Charissa (and sometimes Lily) saw as violating the Rules. Honestly, Lily was a bit surprised Charissa never had gotten revenge for the Diary Incident. As far as she knew, anyway. And Draco, of course, had been completely out of line. There were _better_ ways she could have dealt with him, true, ways that involved less fire and screaming and cold glares from the elder Malfoy prat. But she'd taken care of it without causing any permanent damage or breaking any Rules, or even any normal rules, so Lily couldn't really fault her too much.

As long as what Charissa believed to be good reasons _stayed_ good reasons, Lily didn't really see a problem yet.

That Hermione situation was surprising her, though. She'd had to fight not to show how shocked she'd been when Charissa first admitted to this startlingly _normal_ pubescent crush she had going on. Honestly, she hadn't been sure Charissa was capable of it. She couldn't confidently say Charissa loved _anyone_ — thinking that usually made her feel like a horrible mother again, but there it was. Even herself Lily was pretty sure she just respected. True, that sort of respect, absolute and without reservation, was something Charissa had for very, very few people, but it wasn't quite the same thing.

And Lily carefully did her best to maintain it. That was part of why she taught Charissa things most would say she shouldn't, why she tried to be thorough and completely honest in everything she told her — teaching Charissa everything she wanted to know with only the occasional openly justified exception would keep Charissa coming to _her_ , and being caught in a lie, even a white one, would only do more harm than the lie could do good. Charissa had to keep coming to her, so she didn't get potentially harmful ideas.

But she really hadn't seen this thing with Hermione coming. It'd been almost enough to, for maybe the millionth time, make her wonder if she hadn't been wrong about Charissa this whole time. But, no, there was no real reason to worry about that. From what Charissa had said, the way she acted, there was vanishingly little to indicate this wasn't just a physical thing. The very beginnings of sexuality, her adolescent, hormone-fueled desires latching onto someone convenient. Or at least nearby. Really, she wasn't sure if Charissa understood there was a difference between emotional and physical attraction at all. Which meant, if Lily was right on a few predictions she had going, this whole thing was probably going to end painfully for Hermione, and confusingly for Charissa.

And Lily would be there to diagnose for Charissa exactly what went wrong, to hopefully explain things in such a way her cold and self-possessed daughter, her beautiful and deadly baby girl, to ensure she didn't come out more dangerous than she'd gone in. As she would always be.

'Okay, I'm good.'

Lily blinked, startling back to reality. She'd spaced out a moment there. Must be more tired than she'd thought. Charissa was facing her at the opposite side of the circle, new wand loosely gripped in hand. 'Before we really get going, I think we should assure you can still deflect properly. Your new wand is a touch longer than your old one, that will mess with your aim a little.' Charissa just nodded — she assumed her clever little daughter had already figured that part out. With slow, exaggerated movements, even going so far as to actually use the incantation, Lily lifted her wand, cast a simple stinging jinx.

Perfectly in form, Charissa had raised her own wand hand before Lily had even finished the spell, already partway through the proper flourish. The flash of white light sprung from Lily's wand, arcing across the space between them in an instant. Charissa adjusted her aim slightly, twisted with a graceful flick down and to the right—

And she let out a yelp, hopping back a little, shaking out the fingers of her now empty hand, her wand fallen clattering to the stone. 'Close,' Lily said, watching Charissa pick up her wand to awkwardly prod a healing charm at her reddened fingers with her off hand. 'You have to tighten it up a little. The difference in length made you just a couple degrees off.'

'I did notice that, thank you.' Charissa seemed just barely short of rolling her eyes.

Lily just smirked at her a little. And sent off another stinging jinx. This one was close — Charissa caught the charm maybe a third the way down from the tip of her wand, which wasn't the most _stable_ grip, but still managed to redirect it down into the ground a short distance behind her and to her right. And she caught the next one, and the next, and the next. After a dozen or so, she'd gotten back to more or less the same level of ease Charissa had shown by the end of winter break — slapping jinxes and hexes and even a few curses aside and down, smoothly redirected at the tip of her wand. Which wasn't _too_ exceptional of a skill, when she got down to it. Sure, hex deflection wasn't something the average third-year learned, no doubt about that. But the actual _magic_ required wasn't actually that difficult. Lily and Sev had managed to teach each other at roughly the same age. And, well, using the skill arguably wasn't even that advisable — intentionally sitting in the path of a curse sent by someone who was _trying_ to harm was a bit stupid — but it was undeniable it just looked damned impressive.

She didn't even pause to officially, so to speak, call a beginning to their practice duel. Instead, she just shot off three _lūdiōrum_ in quick succession — only projectile-based charms could be deflected like this, so the more spread out lashes of magical flame had to be either dodged or blocked. Charissa didn't hesitate, her wand moving in the familiar circular flourish of a shield charm, ' _Contegite_ ,' falling from her lips. Lily was slightly surprised: she hadn't expected a proper shield charm. Even as the _lūdiōrum_ splashed away in a flash of blue-yellow light, temporarily obscuring the figure just beyond, Lily again heard an incantation from Charissa: ' _Stupeat_.' The familiar red light of a stunning hex stretched across the distance between them, the colour bright and solid.

With the simplest push of her magic, the smallest twitch of her wand, Lily batted it aside, sending the charm crashing against the wardline behind her. But she couldn't help smiling a little.

The duel went on for a couple minutes, mostly the two of them trading simple projectile-based charms, sandwiched between almost constant _lūdiōrum_ , both either dodging, shielding, or deflecting every spell. Well, Charissa did all the dodging, since she wasn't sending anything at Lily she needed to actually _move_ for, but still. Lily was mildly surprised Charissa wasn't doing anything more interesting. She couldn't use any conjuration, of course — Charissa wasn't yet good enough at transfiguration to really even attempt that — so there was an entire avenue of attack and defence precluded. Perhaps she was avoiding elemental magic just because of _who_ she was fighting. Since Lily was yet so much more powerful than she was, it would be a simple matter for her to wrest control of any such magic away from her young daughter. Which Charissa must surely know.

Not to say Charissa wasn't doing _well_ — the speed they were going at, she was actually a little surprised Charissa could keep up. Lily could cast her into the ground if she wanted to, of course. But she was a quick little thing already. Good. Too few seemed to realise it was speed and developed skill, more than power and natural talent, that ended up deciding most fights. But, Lily was starting to get bored — it didn't help that she'd been so _tired_ lately. So she'd make things more interesting.

A relaxed rush of power, a flick of her wand, one each to her left and her right, conjured two golems of imitation flesh. Sort of wolf- _like_ , she guessed. Didn't look very accurate, but she didn't need them to be. Charissa aimed a dispel at the right one immediately, but Lily just jerked it out of the way with a quick summoning charm. Shield charms dealt with the rest of Charissa's attempts to finish them off early, even while Lily used her free hand to cast a few basic runic protections on them both. It always had frustrated people how she could cast two spells at once. And then, with a single rune inscribed in the energy of the air, she cheated. The runic spell reached into the duelling wards, yanked at the threads of magic, twisted them into her conjured creatures, settled in throughout them. A little trick she'd learned in her duelling days — the Hogwarts club rules had been slightly modified specifically so she couldn't do it anymore. They'd be almost immune to any sort of dispel and vanishing now. Theoretically, it _was_ possible to beat this little trick, but it would require a frankly absurd amount of power for a thirteen-year-old: Charissa would essentially have to dispel both the constructs _and_ the wards. Charissa was powerful, but not that powerful. Honestly, Lily doubted she'd be able to do it herself.

She set the conjured beasts loose, and sat back to watch.

Charissa managed to fire off a few more attempts at dispelling them before they fell upon her and she was forced to stumble out of the way. She gave up trying to dispel them, and switched to cutting charms, blasting curses, dodging, dodging, dodging. At one point, Lily had thought Charissa was caught, one of the beasts flinging itself into the air straight for her shoulder, but Charissa managed to shove it off with a tight banishing with inches to spare. That apparently made her angry, since she followed that up with a growled, ' _Cumigne lacerā_!' The air was suddenly filled with the shuddering crash of an explosion, loud enough Lily winced, a full quarter of the circle consumed with roiling fire. When the construct stepped out of the drifting smoke only a little scorched, Charissa cast the spell again, and again.

Going a little overboard there, wasn't she? Lily hadn't been aware Charissa had gotten so proficient with an incendiary curse. Essentially a fusion of a blasting curse and fire magic, they were rather seriously dangerous. Granted, _cumigne lacerāns_ was one of the simplest ones, but still news to her. Not that it would do her any good. After a few noisy blasts, raising the temperature in their warded bubble by several degrees, the most she'd done was give one of the constructs a bit of a limp.

So she tried a different tack. ' _Pirá kaþarízontas_ —' Charissa dodged one of the constructs again even as she started the wand movement. '— _s'eména katá mastíḡo_ —' Another dodge, this time only by inches, her wand swishing down to the construct even as it whipped by her. '— _ðénete_!' Lily could feel the flutter of elemental magic clearly from here, found herself grinning at the pulse of orange-yellow light springing from her daughter's wand. A thick, shimmering tendril of ethereal flame rapidly extended from the tip, one metre, two, the coils tumbling atop Lily's conjured attack animal. The air was filled with the sound of sizzling flesh, the multicoloured sparks of disintegrating enchantments. In seconds, the magic was burned out of the construct, reducing it to a motionless lump of sliced, charred meat.

Not bad. There were various forms of magical flame out there, but one of the most common traits found was the ability to burn through enchantments, wards, spells of all kinds. That was one of the major reasons fire elemental magic was so useful. The kind Charissa was using now, _pir kaþarízontas_ , was hardly one of the most powerful ones, true. But it was definitely good enough to deal with her little conjured beasties — Charissa twisted her long whip of hissing fire through the air with a few wide swings of her wand arm, bringing a length of it right into the remaining construct, killing it in short seconds.

Not bad at all. She could use more practice with that, shave down the incantation a bit. But not bad.

Then, with another swing and an awkward-looking twist, Charissa sent the end snapping straight at Lily. But she just smirked at her. A quick jab of her wand, a flood of quelling power, and the whip froze in place. She didn't _need_ to say the incantation, but she did anyway, for Charissa's benefit: ' _Lũgesat_.' A pleasant tingling washed across her, and she could _feel_ the fire before her, almost as though it were a part of her, a warm and light and diffuse part of her, dancing through the air. A wave of her hand and the feeling shifted, the fire changed, the whip expanding into a wave of yellow-orange rising from the ground to somewhat above her waist, stretching from one side of the circle to the other, bisecting the ring, Lily and her daughter on opposite sides. 'Using such weakly bound fire magic against me is a bad idea.' Her image distorted by heat shimmer, Charissa just sighed, looking slightly annoyed with herself. A flick of dismissal from her fingers, and the wave of fire moved, rushing in toward Charissa, cornered against the wardline.

Not that Lily really expected it to work. Flinging her wand arm down to the side, Charissa hopped slightly off the ground even as the incantation left her lips: ' _Expelle_.' Managed to get that out rather calmly, considering. Most of the people she'd mentioned the trick to — at least, those who hadn't taken Arithmancy — didn't seem to realise how banishing and summoning charms actually _worked_. Part of the spell created a repelling or attractive force between the caster and the target, and part of it locked the caster onto whatever surface they happened to be standing on. If they _weren't_ standing on anything, that part of the spell wouldn't work. Since Charissa was much smaller than the thing she was trying to banish — the _entire damn planet_ — she was launched into the air instead. Twisting in an uncontrolled spin, Charissa easily cleared the approaching wave of fire, and—

Lily winced when Charissa abruptly slammed to a halt against an invisible ceiling, the wards containing them a dozen feet above her head quite effectively canceling her daughter's upward momentum. Yeah, whoops. Before Charissa could hit the ground, Lily shot a softening charm at the spot she was about to land on, slowed her descent a little with a few twitches of her wand. A little, not a lot — the impact had been light enough Charissa was still conscious, and she'd find doing _too much_ to stop her from getting hurt from her own mistake condescending. A second after softly falling to the stone floor, lying motionlessly face-down, Charissa let out a long groan. 'Ow.'

Just to make sure, Lily shot off a couple Healing charms, scanning for injuries — a little bruising, but she'd be fine. Lily walked over, sinking to a seat on the floor a few inches from Charissa. 'That was very graceful.'

Charissa just groaned at her.

Couldn't see from this angle, but Lily wouldn't be surprised if Charissa's face was a bit red right now. Probably embarrassed. After a moment of thought, Lily decided to take pity on her. 'I did the same exact thing once, you know.' Charissa didn't look up, or say anything, but Lily could tell she was listening. 'It was fourth year, duelling club at Hogwarts. Selwyn, this fifth-year girl I had something of a rivalry going on with. Same thing — thought I was so clever, I'll just avoid that annoying wide-angle attack by banishing myself over it. Hit the ceiling of the wards, exactly like you did. And she hit me with a stunner before I even hit the floor. I was rather embarrassed about it all when I woke up. Didn't help that Alice kept teasing me about it.' Which had been especially annoying, since at the time... Well, they'd been occasionally finding moments to be alone with each other around then. Their minor spat over this even contributed to Lily ending it, started going with Sev a few weeks later. Not that she thought Charissa wanted to know those details.

Come to think of it, Lily was positive she'd lied to Charissa at some point about exactly what she'd gotten up to at Hogwarts. She'd told her about Alice and Sev, but she thought she might have at the least implied there hadn't been anyone else. In her defense, she doubted Charissa really wanted to know. But being caught in a lie would be bad, no matter her (accurate) excuse that she'd only been editing because Charissa had been too young at the time, so it would probably be better to just not say anything.

But anyway, Charissa was chuckling at her a little now. Back to the conversation. 'My little incident was worse than yours, actually. It'd been a challenge at the end of the meeting. It was in front of _everyone_.'

Charissa fully laughed at that. 'Oh, wow. Ouch.'

'Yes, yes, I was quite mortified at the time. Long time ago, though. Selwyn— Ah, actually it's Travers now. Anyway, everyone else has practically forgotten about it, but she'll still tease me every once in a while, just to bother me, but by now I can see it really was pretty funny, I don't actually mind it.

'See...' Lily slid a little closer, laid her free hand on Charissa's shoulder. Her daughter tensed a little, a sudden tightness Lily could feel through her robes, but relaxed after a couple seconds, letting out a barely audible sigh. '...even the best of us are going to do something stupid occasionally. No matter what you do, at some point, you're going to make yourself look like an idiot. Happens to everyone. Best thing to do, I feel, is just get up and laugh it off. People will respect you more for it, and you'll definitely be happier not beating yourself up for however long over slipping for just two seconds. You follow?'

For a couple seconds, Charissa was still and silent. But then she nodded — which looked a little awkward with her face against the stone of the circle, but whatever. 'I probably did look ridiculous, didn't I.'

If she weren't so tired she'd probably be grinning like a maniac right now. 'Yep. I can borrow a pensieve and show you later if you want.'

'No thanks, I'm good.'

A few minutes later, Lily finally convinced Charissa to get back up to her feet, and Lily started leading the way inside. She could use some tea right about now — she always bought this highly-caffeinated black stuff she practically needed these days to keep herself awake. Just before stepping into the kitchen, she stopped, Charissa halting a step in front of her. 'Speaking of looking like an idiot...'

Charissa turned, giving her a wary sort of look.

'Have you asked Hermione out yet?'

Charissa rolled her eyes and turned away, walking on inside without a word.

Yeah. She'd take that as a no. Smirking to herself a little, she slipped in after her.

* * *

 _April 27th, 1994_

* * *

'I think I'd like to go over goblin and caryd culture a little bit again. Maybe the latter a bit more than the former — carīdwð are weird. Did you have anything you wanted to work on?'

Charissa apparently didn't even have to think about it for a second. 'I could use some more practice for Transfiguration.'

Not surprising, Hermione thought with a nod. Transfiguration was probably Charissa's weakest practical subject. She probably still averaged Outstandings most of the time — just not as easily nor consistently. Charissa had passed Hermione up with charms again at some point, and might even do better than her on the Runes exam, but she was sure she was still better with transfiguration. 'Well. As long as we're in the library, you want to go over Fae stuff? We'll get some transfiguration in after dinner.'

'Yeah, sure.' Charissa was already reaching for her Ðīɬ Anðwnn notes.

When Hermione had explained the situation to Professor Flitwick, he'd been very quick to arrange early exams for her, so she could be home for the nigh-imminent birth of her sister. Mum had said she was due on the eighteenth of next month — Hermione would be taking her exams next week, and would be going home that weekend. Somewhat to her surprise, Charissa had gone to Professor Flitwick on her own, and would be taking the exams early too. When she'd asked about it, Charissa had just shrugged, said something vague about her brothers, and how she'd probably be bored at Hogwarts without her anyway.

Hermione doubted the second — Charissa had been spending an increasing proportion of her time around her younger Slytherin cousins, after all — but she knew there was something to the first, no matter how vague Charissa had been about it. Charissa hadn't said much about it, but she'd gotten the impression the Potters were having some sort of family problems at the moment. She assumed Charissa's parents were fighting, but Charissa hadn't said, and she hadn't thought it tactful to ask, so she didn't know for sure one way or the other. Either way, she appreciated it. This way she had someone to revise with.

When Charissa and Lily had tag-teamed her into paring down her electives, one of the ones she'd kept on was the course about the Ðīɬ Anðwnn. And she was rather glad she had, because it was completely fascinating. If confusing. It hadn't occurred to her, first running into the goblins at Gringotts, to wonder where exactly they came from. They were, when she'd taken a moment to think about it, both too similar and too different for their existence to make sense to her — too similar to have arisen through convergent evolution, but too different in certain ways to have a common ancestor recently (relatively speaking). She'd been absolutely baffled when she'd heard of Professor Flitwick's mixed ancestry. It hadn't even occurred to her that humans and goblins might be able to interbreed. She'd settled on the assumption that humans and goblins weren't different species at all, that their magic was altering their appearance somehow, they weren't as different as they looked.

And she'd assumed completely wrong. Goblins were far more removed from humanity than she'd thought possible. Fae weren't even _from_ _Earth_. As Hermione understood it, they were from some parallel dimension or something. Technically, several distinct ones. The Fae themselves said they were from different "realms", but there wasn't exactly a consensus on what they meant by that. The more powerful of them could travel back and forth, seemingly as easily as apparating, but no human had ever even gotten close to replicating the process. Nobody had any clue exactly what they were doing — where they were from, how they got here.

In a sense, she'd been right to think goblins and humans shouldn't be able to interbreed. They couldn't. But there were ways around that. Part-goblins like Professor Flitwick and a small number of others around the world had been specially created by goblin-designed blood alchemy — technically speaking, they were neither human nor goblin, but something entirely new with traits of both. And they were even their own species as well: they could interbreed with each other, but if they wanted to have children with a human _or_ a goblin, they had to use that same kind of magic again. Which was far more weird and complicated than she'd assumed.

But, despite being a different species from a different realm, goblins were remarkably human-like. They weren't _that_ physically different, really. They had a very similar level of intelligence, they observed the same logical principles, they had very similar emotional needs. Their clan-based social structure could easily be a human society, if a rather hierarchical one. They weren't _that_ unusual. They even had a system of religious beliefs that really weren't that hard to understand — in fact, near as human scholars could tell from the little of their history they'd shared, goblins came to Earth as something much like refugees, moving somewhere they could practise their faith free of interference. Of course, in the millennia since, their religion had grown far less important to them, but that _had_ been the original point. They weren't hard to figure out, with a little thought.

It was the carīdwð she often had problems understanding. Yes, some Fae races, like the goblins, were very similar to humans. But some were, well... _not_. The carīdwð were an example of _not_. For one thing, while they might _look_ human most of the time, they really weren't. A caryd some centuries ago had explained it as camouflage: they instinctively cast a sort of full-body transfiguration over themselves, taking on an appearance of exaggerated beauty specifically as self-defence, to make people of other species less likely to harm them. They only looked like humans around humans; apparently, their ambassadors to the goblin nation looked like exceptionally attractive goblins to them. Their infamous emotion-manipulating abilities were another avenue of self-defence — in fact, they considered it something of a faux pas to manipulate someone _too_ far beyond their own interests, dishonourable if not officially criminal. Without the transfiguration, carīdwð were... Well, birds, basically. Large, sapient, magically powerful birds. Sort of like phoenixes, actually, though larger and less thoroughly magical.

And, yes, carīdwð always took the appearance of women. People generally found women less threatening, that was the entire point. But, the true situation was...both more and less complicated. Less complicated, because carīdwð were essentially a single-sex species — there was some disagreement whether that meant they were hermaphrodites, or if ideas of sex and reproduction native to Earth simply didn't apply wherever they came from. None of them were men or women, but...sort of both and sort of neither, all the same? It wasn't really that complicated of a concept. Weird, yes, but simple.

But more complicated because, while they didn't have _sexes_ , they did have _genders_. _Three_ of them, actually. In their own language, they called them _iyumē_ , _hisamē_ , and _iþayamē_ — no one was really sure what those meant, carīdwð were characteristically leery of sharing much of their language with outsiders. They hadn't really told humans all that many details about the three either, far as she could tell. It was known _iyumē_ were almost universally dominant personalities, and tended to do most of the fighting — they were generally compared with the male gender in humans for that reason. Not all, but most carīdwð humans have had contact with were _iyumē_. _Hisamē_ were generally thought to be...hypersocial, in a word, while _iþayamē_ were, in some ways, the exact opposite — the majority of carīdwð scholars were recluse _iþayamē_.

Much like with human genders, all three types had different social trappings to go with them — different traditional roles, different clothes, different etiquette and speech patterns, everything. And, again like humans, any individual person might be more or less a stereotypical example of their gender, but that didn't make them less of one, if that made sense. There was a lot of grey area, but every individual was still considered one of the three. It was weird and complicated, was the point.

And that wasn't even getting into carīdwð relationships. They didn't do the whole pair bonding thing as did humans and goblins — not surprisingly, what with having three genders instead of two. But they didn't just stick to triads either. Not counting children, a family without one _iyumē_ , three or four _hisamē_ , and one or two _iþayamē, at least,_ was considered to be _incomplete_. Which was just...

It was a bit hard for Hermione to get her head around the whole thing.

How easily Charissa seemed to just shrug and accept it all kind of bothered her a little.

Hermione wasn't entirely sure how long they sat there, intermittently talking and reading about Fae stuff. Maybe an hour or two. She was getting a bit hungry, and the sun was getting low in the sky, so it was probably about time to head back to the Great Hall. Despite herself, she was slightly sad she only had about a week of meals left there, it was a rather pretty place. And sugar-free pudding was gross. Speaking of the Great Hall— 'Oh.'

'Hmm?'

She glanced up to see Charissa was giving her a look, one eyebrow raised. 'It's nothing. I just realised, leaving early like I am this year, I'll miss them setting up for the Solstice thing.'

Now Charissa just looked faintly confused. 'So? It's not like you're on the guest list.'

That was true. There were a number of major holidays in magical Britain — not that Hermione necessarily knew much about most of them. The four most important were Hallowe'en (which they called either Hīfeð or Samhain), just a couple days before Christmas (Yule or Aðyfeð), another a couple weeks after the vernal equinox (Gwēfeð or Beltane), and the last on the summer solstice (Dyfeð or Lársamhraidh). Each of the four usually had some big high society party sort of thing on or near the day, with all the Noble Houses and certain other powerful people getting together and being all fancy. All tasteful music and pretty clothes and expensive food, that sort of thing.

Or, at least, so she'd heard. She'd obviously never been to one, and hardly knew anyone who had. For one thing, the people invited by default were rather narrow — everyone from the Noble Houses fourteen or older, certain Ministry employees, Order of Myrðin recipients. She obviously wasn't any of those. Anyone belonging to one of those groups _could_ bring an extra person with them, but that didn't seem all that likely either.

'I know that,' she said with a little shrug. 'I just like seeing the castle get all prettied up is all.' Dyfeð was almost always held at the castle, just a few days after they left at the end of term. By the time it was time to leave, Hogwarts was often nearly completely transformed. There was a lot that could be done with magical decoration. 'Besides, it's sort of fun to think about.' Charissa raised an eyebrow at her again, so she said, 'Going to one, I mean. I know I'm not invited, someone would have to ask me to go with them, which I honestly don't think is very likely, but it's still fun to think about.'

'I would.'

Hermione mostly managed to stop herself from rolling her eyes. 'I know you'd take me to one, if I asked you. Actually,' she muttered, 'that's not a terrible idea, once just for fun.' She shook her head to herself, switched back to full volume. Or full library volume, anyway. 'But I sort of meant, you know, like a date.'

For a couple seconds, Charissa didn't respond, just staring at her in silence, and Hermione worried she might have said something she shouldn't have. Boys and dating and such had never really been anything they'd ever talked about, but she didn't know for sure if that was because neither of them cared about any of that all that much, or if there was some reason Charissa didn't _want_ to talk about it she didn't know about. Such things were possible. But just as she was starting to wonder if she should apologise or something, Charissa nodded to herself a little. 'I did too.'

'You did what too?'

A subtle smirk twitched at Charissa's lips. 'I'd go with you. You know, like a date.'

'Ah...' Was she— She was joking, right? This wasn't... Er...

Hermione had no idea how long she sat there blinking at Charissa. Her thoughts kept skipping really, really weird, probably screwing up her recall even, she couldn't even begin to guess.

Finally, she found her voice again. 'Charissa, are you...asking me out?'

Looking perfectly calm and casual, Charissa just shrugged. 'I guess that depends.'

'Depends on what?'

'On what you'd say if I did.'

'I—'

Well, she hadn't a damn clue what she'd say, did she? She just... She didn't know what was going on anymore.

This was just so completely out of nowhere. She'd had _absolutely no idea_ Charissa was interested in her that way. At all. It'd just...never occurred to her. Actually, she hadn't even known Charissa was a lesbian. Erm...that was what she was implying, right? Was that something someone could even know at fou—? Thirteen, Charissa was still thirteen. Come to think of it, that would only make sense, considering she'd been overhearing other girls gossiping about boys since...well, since primary school, really. So she guessed it wasn't that weird in theory.

And, well, _she_ had certainly never thought of _Charissa_ like that. Not that she'd _not..._ She had no idea where that sentence was going. It had just...literally never occurred to her as a thing to think about, if that made sense. And she had no idea what to think of it now. She just felt completely off-balance here. Charissa was her best friend, of course — and by now she'd finally started getting used to _actually having_ a best friend, it wasn't something she'd experienced before Hogwarts. But...

Actually, come to think of it, she honestly didn't think she'd had any of those kinds of feelings or thoughts or whatever for _anyone_. At least, not anyone in particular. Over the last couple months, sure, she'd thought to herself a few times it might be a good idea to try the...having a boyfriend...thing. At some point. If only because it was a thing people did and, while she didn't particularly want one _right this second_ , she probably would when she was older, so it might be a good idea to...work out the initial awkwardness along with her peer group? Instead of later, when she'd probably be behind? She wasn't sure if that made sense. Honestly, she was completely clueless when it came to going about this sort of thing, it wasn't something she had any—

Oh. Oh, crap. Dammit, dammit, _dammit_. She was completely clueless when it came to this sort of thing. It wasn't, so to speak, a language she'd learned yet. So clueless the thought hadn't even crossed her mind that Charissa might _ever_ be attracted to her. It just... She hadn't— She didn't know. She hadn't been...leading Charissa on somehow? Without knowing it? She didn't _think_ she had, but...she wasn't sure what it would look like if she _had_ been, really, so. She guessed it was possible she could have on accident.

She was starting to get a little light-headed, so she stopped a moment to take a long breath in and out.

Okay, well, whatever, that wasn't really important to think about right now, she guessed. There was something she had decide right now: what the hell was she was going to _say_? Pretty much anything she _could_ say would be problematic in one way or another. She wasn't sure she could really say no. At least...she had to be careful with _how_ she said no. Because, again, Charissa was her _best friend_ , and she'd somehow _never noticed this_ , and she wanted Charissa to _stay_ her best friend, and she was pretty sure saying the wrong thing here, it'd be pretty easy to say something _really hurtful_ without meaning to, and that would be _bad_. True, Charissa had always been almost unusually thick-skinned, but... She didn't _know_ , that was the point.

And she wasn't really sure saying yes was really much of an option either. Because, well...the thought had just...never, _ever_ occurred to her before. She had no idea whether or not she was attracted to girls in general — for that matter, she didn't even know if she liked boys either, she'd honestly never given the whole thing much thought. Charissa in particular, even less of an idea. Saying yes now to give it a shot then finding out later on down the road that she wasn't interested... True, she was hardly an expert on this kind of thing, but she was still sure that would be _bad, bad, bad_.

She had _no bloody clue_ what to do at all, and she was starting to get a headache, this was just—

' _Hermione_.' She jerked a little, refocused on her surroundings to find Charissa giving her a sort of half-amused, half-exasperated look. 'No need to lose your head on me. You're allowed to say no. I won't be mad or anything.'

Okay. Well. Maybe she had been being a little bit ridiculous there. She took another long breath, cleared her throat a little. 'Sorry, I just—' She shrugged. 'Honestly, this just never occurred to me. At all. Ever.'

Charissa just shrugged. Shrugged! 'I thought it mightn't have.'

Oh, _of course_! _Of course_ , Charissa just knew exactly what she was doing, obviously. Didn't Charissa _always_ know what she was doing? Well, okay, no, Hermione knew that wasn't true. Almost entirely because Charissa had _told_ her so — she always handled everything so smoothly she doubted she would have noticed otherwise. She knew she probably shouldn't be, but she couldn't help being a bit annoyed with Charissa, for putting her in this awkward situation like this. On clearly unbalanced terrain at that. Not that, come to think of it, she wasn't _already_ on unbalanced terrain with Charissa on a normal day. Hermione _was_ being sponsored by House Potter, after all. There were some complicated legal and social hoops to go with that, but the crux of the matter was—

Oh, dammit, dammit, _dammit_! She hadn't even thought of that! If she somehow did something to bollocks up her friendship with Charissa, she'd probably lose the patronage of House Potter too! Which would be _bad_! Very, very bad!

Why did everything these days have to be so _complicated_?

'Can I just—' Hermione let out a long sigh, rubbing her face with both hands. She suddenly felt so unbelievably tired. This was ridiculous. 'I need time to think about this. Can we save it for later?'

'Sure,' Charissa said with another easy nod. 'There's no rush. Anyway, we should probably get down to dinner.'

Hermione let out a low groan, but started reaching for her books. But, well, this was fine. She'd gotten a delay, that was good. She could consider what to do about this. That was good, yes. No reason to completely go nuts here. Think things through calmly and rationally like everything else. Yes. Good.

It really bothered her how uncomfortable she felt walking next to Charissa down the hall. She just couldn't help being so suddenly self-conscious, she just...

Dammit. Just dammit.

* * *

 _arūt_ — _Ancient Egyptian, means "door" or "gate". Too lazy to find somewhere I can copy it from, but it's a comparatively simple glyph, just a few strokes. And, by the way, Lily can't blast her way through just **any** anti-apparition ward with this simple little runic spell. The one(s) in Diagon Alley are just a bit overextended._

 _Contegite_ — _Latin, second-person plural imperative meaning "conceal" or "protect". Inspired by fanon_ contego _. Charissa is, however, using a modified version designed to protect from multiple angles at once, hence the plural. Not as durable as a full_ prōtege _, but still useful._

 _Cumigne lacerā_ — _More Latin. Means something like "tear apart / destroy with fire". A couple sentences later, the_ lacerāns _is a participle, basically a noun (the spell name) instead of a verb (the incantation)._

["Pirá kaþarízontas, s'eména katá mastíḡo ðénete" (Modern Greek: Πυρά καθαρίζοντας, σ'εμένα κατά μαστίγιο δένετε)] — _Means something like "cleansing fires, (come) to me (and) bind into (a) whip". It's entirely possible I made mistakes at some point, excluding words I rearranged or just plain skipped for artistic and efficiency reasons. Greek is hard._

 _Lũgesat_ (IPA: /l̥ʊ̃ɣʰɛsat̪̚/) — _This is from a conlang, the language they speak in the civilisation of magical Crete I've made up. It basically means "bow", as a command._

 _Expelle_ — _Latin, imperative of "drive away", "expel", "banish". This would be the banishing charm, which is_ depulso _in canon._

 _Iyumē, hisamē, iþayamē_ — _Exactly how they're spelled: "ee-you-may", "hee-sah-may", and "ee-thah-yah-may"_

 _Hīfeð_ (IPA: /hy:.ϕɛð/ roughly "hee-feth") — _Originally used for the autumnal equinox, modern Brīþwn term for Halloween. Made from Welsh words for "evening" and "four" (hwyr and pedwar)._

 _Samhain_ — _By the way, most people I've heard pronounce this wrong. Depending on dialect, the first vowel is an **ah** sound, the second vowel is some short vowel (often reduced to a schwa), and the "mh" in the middle sounds like a **v** , a **w** , or is silent. Because Irish spelling._

 _Aðyfeð_ (IPA: /a.ðɨ.ϕɛð/ roughly "ah-thih-feth") — _Modern Brīþwn term for the winter solstice. Taken from the old Irish word for "night" (adaig) and the Welsh word for "four" (pedwar). Had to steal from Irish, since the word in Welsh is a borrowing from Latin._

 _Beltane_ — _Someone out there might be saying, "Ah ha, you fool! Lá Bealtaine is on May the first, a whole month and a half after the spring equinox, not just a couple weeks!" Yes. I know that. The holiday celebrated roughly at this time of year moved around a bit, exactly which date was attached to which name switching around a little. The Brīþwn term, Gwēfeð, originally meant the vernal equinox specifically. The Wizengamot declared that date around the beginning of April a major holiday and, after a couple centuries, the Brīþwn-speakers were calling it Gwēfeð and the Goidelic-speakers Bealtaine, even though neither term is precisely accurate. Things like that happen sometimes._

 _Lársamhraidh — Pretty sure this is just a normal Irish word. Means Midsummer._

* * *

 _Before you comment about Lily's Charissa ramble, a few things to keep in mind._

 _1: Lily isn't entirely right about Charissa. But she's more right than she is wrong.  
_ _2: No, I'm not retconning Charissa's character. This was planned from the beginning._ _You might be thinking, how could that possibly be? It doesn't exactly match with a few thoughts she's had, especially over the first several chapters. Well,  
_ _3: Charissa lies. Even in her own head, to preserve her own self-image (which is a thing everyone does, actually). Sometimes about facts and events. Sometimes about her own motivations. Sometimes, when she lies, she even believes it herself._

 _Someone left a review a long time ago (chapter 5 I think?) saying it was bothering him how much of a perfect nice good person Charissa is, and it actually sort of made me laugh. Because she's not. She just likes to think she is._

 _Until next time,  
~Wings_


	19. Three Slytherins

_May 3rd, 1994_

* * *

Dora had been told her NEWTs were the last tests she'd really have to study for. They lied.

A lot of people didn't seem to realise this, but the Aurors weren't _technically_ part of the Ministry. They were a local chapter of an international organisation that happened to be _allied_ _with_ the Ministry. The Order of Aurora predated the Wizengamot by a fair amount, not just the modern Department of Law Enforcement. Their treaty with the Ministry, in a lot of ways, made them seem nearly indistinguishable from normal DLE employees, but there were differences. For one thing, the Ministry couldn't set the required qualifications for Aurors, or really interfere in most any way — they did their own recruitment. They _could_ , however, set requirements for the Aurors under contract with the DLE. Which mostly took the form of a written test. British law, evidentiary procedure, judicial rules, that sort of thing.

By now, her apprenticeship was pretty much over. The Aurors were perfectly willing to let her join. If anything, they were nearly _giddy_ — she was the only metamorphmaga in the whole damn country at the moment, so part of why they were so eager to snap her up might have something to do with that. At least, she thought she was? One had been born in the forties, to House Ingham, she knew, but she'd sort of disappeared, and no one was sure where she'd gone. They did that sometimes. She'd never met another, anyway. So, yeah, the Aurors wanted her, would do the ceremony any day now. But the Ministry still needed that stupid test. So she was studying.

And bloody hell if it wasn't the _most boring thing ever_.

She was sitting in her old bedroom in her parents' house, curled in her familiar reading chair. Slogging through a book on evidentiary law and precedent Dad had lent her. And, seriously, she thought she might die of boredom over here. It was just, so...so...

 _Ergh_ , if she had wanted to spend her time reading shite like this, she would have studied law! Just, dammit...

She heard a sudden slam from downstairs, thudding through the walls. Frowning to herself, she let her book fall to rest against her legs. After a couple seconds of listening, she heard voices screaming at each other — Mum, that was definitely Mum, and _that_ dulcet voice...

A smirk started pulling at her lips. That would work as a distraction. She'd take it.

Setting her book aside, she popped to her feet, and started for the door. And stopped a couple steps in, glanced down at herself. Right. She'd changed to fit better curled up in her chair the way she liked. Probably not best to walk into this confrontation looking like a six-year-old. She concentrated for an instant, forming in her mind's eye the shape and feel of the body she felt like having at the moment — her very House Black -looking visage she'd invented, all tall and thin, face sharp and pale, long hair smooth and black — and _pushed_ the image out. It was always a bit hard to explain exactly how she did this, or what it felt like. It was like warm water, flowing not just _over_ her skin, but _through_ it, washing flesh and bone in soothing heat. As the world shrunk somewhat around her, she tore at the transfiguration gripping her clothes, allowing them to shift back to the casual day robes they'd been before.

She flipped her wand out quick, conjured a mirror to check her hair. For some reason, she'd never been great with getting her hair and eye colour right — she often wore pink hair on purpose now, but the first time she'd been four and she'd _meant_ to give herself blonde hair but it'd come out wrong. She'd just happened to decide she liked it. And even for black hair, it was easier to get wrong than most people would think. Get it _too_ black and it seemed fake, and could even be a little creepy, like she were enshrouded in some kind of subtle black magic. A couple times, she'd somehow made her hair such a shiny black it'd ended up with weird, rainbow reflections through it, like a puddle of glimmering oil surrounding her head. It was really easy to screw up. But it looked fine this time, so she vanished the mirror and replaced her wand.

She found the two of them in the living room. Arguing. They were certainly arguing. Very loudly. But, to be fair, had she ever seen Mum and Bellatrix occupy the same room for more than ten minutes _without_ arguing? She didn't think so. She didn't think they'd gotten along since...well, before their own years at Hogwarts. A long time. Mum was standing in front of the hearth, arms crossed over her chest, chin subtly lifted. A defensive posture, then, but a defiant one. Bellatrix was a couple feet away, and, by the look of it, a couple seconds away from cursing Mum. Face twisted in fury, shoulders tense, fingers twitching at her sides. Yep, she was angry. Dora paid closer attention to what they were saying for a couple seconds.

Oh dear, oh dear. Silly Auntie Bella.

'She stays.'

Both older women cut off at Dora's voice, glancing in her direction. Well, Mum glanced, just turned her head a little; Bellatrix spun sharply on her heel to face her, hair whipping around. Wow, okay. Short leash at the moment. 'I don't see how that's your place to decide,' she snarled with a heavy glare.

That was probably supposed to be intimidating. Honestly, Bellatrix did used to scare her quite a bit, back when she'd been younger. But now, after all that time spent alone with Alastor... Yeah, this was nothing. So, when she walked a few steps further into the room, Dora made sure to move as smoothly and casually as possible, arms loose at her sides. Mostly because she knew it would annoy her silly aunt. 'Mm, not yet, no.' Bellatrix's eye twitched at the reminder that Dora would be Lady Black soon, likely before the end of summer — it took everything Dora had not to giggle. 'But it is Aunt Cassie's place to decide.'

Yeah, that glare wasn't getting any looser. Bellatrix was gonna tear something in her face at this rate. 'You can't just force my daughter to—'

'Force?' Apparently, Bellatrix didn't like being interrupted, her face going all red. A smirk twitched at Dora's lips. 'We didn't _force_ little Bella to do anything. Nice girl, you know. Very lonely. Raised by _muggles_ , apparently.' Which didn't bother her at all, of course, but she knew Bellatrix at least _claimed_ to be a pureblood supremacist, so it was a fun button to push. 'Was rather pleased at the idea of actually having family. She took up our invitation to stay over the solstice in a heartbeat. When Mum and Dad offered to take her in permanently... I think I saw her _cry_ , it was the weirdest thing. Doesn't really seem the type.'

Not lying there. Little Bella actually had cried when Mum and Dad had made the offer. Dora hadn't known whether to be a bit weirded out by that — she was usually such a cold, snarky little thing it'd just seemed _wrong_ somehow — or just kind of...sad. Poor kid.

'Besides,' she continued, 'the whole thing's perfectly legitimate. Check the archives at Black Manor, or with the Office of Child Welfare. Aunt Cassie's signed off on all of it. It should really be her you're yelling at.'

Bellatrix flinched, ever so slightly. Yeah, yelling at Lady Black on her deathbed was really only a good plan if she were looking to get cursed by Aunt Melaina. Woman could be a bit scary, and loved her cousin (by marriage) quite a lot. Perhaps suspiciously a lot, to be honest — it wasn't even a secret that Cassiopeia had had affairs with countless women over the years, and those two _had_ been really close for nearly as long as Dora had been alive — but no one ever said anything about it. Before too long, Bellatrix found her voice again. 'I know what you're doing.'

Dora gave an easy shrug. 'I know what you're doing. Didn't expect Aunt Cassie to live this long, did you? Would have been a nice surprise, you bringing a challenge to the Council of Family Law on behalf of a pureblooded potential heir we didn't even know existed. Might have even made us slip up.'

'You'll still lose,' Bellatrix said in a low hiss. 'The Council won't let a Noble and Most Ancient House fall to a _halfblood_.' The word was said with such a disgusted snarl it was almost hard to understand.

Over Bellatrix's shoulder, Dora saw Mum glare at her sister's back, open her mouth to say something. Dora shot her a quick look — she had this. Mum hesitated for a moment, then nodded slightly, snapped her mouth closed. Didn't stop glaring at Bellatrix, though. 'Nah, even if you challenge it, I'll still win.' Not that she was entirely sure she _wanted_ to. She'd never had that much of a desire to be Lady Black, honestly. But, well, if the choices were herself and _Bellatrix_ , she'd pick herself. Arcturus had taken her aunt out of the line of succession for a reason, after all. Bellatrix would technically only be acting as regent for little Bella, but still, unacceptable. 'See, you miscalculated.'

Bellatrix didn't let up on her glare, but for the barest of seconds there was a flicker of doubt in her eyes. Dora guessed she'd said it confidently enough Bellatrix wasn't quite sure she was bluffing. 'And how did I do that?'

Cocking her head slightly, Dora let her face slip into the mocking grin she'd been holding back this whole conversation. 'It's obvious. Bella likes me more than she likes you. Why would she ever help you?' In fact, she was calling it right now. Bellatrix would make the challenge, they'd be standing in front of the Council, and little Bella would tell them she didn't want it, to just give it to Dora. She'd bet a thousand galleons on it.

Bellatrix must be having similar thoughts, because her snarled face tightened, her fingers twitching for her wand. But Dora got there first. With the little flicker of wandless magic Alastor had taught her years ago now, she drew her wand up into her hand, had the tip pointed steadily at her aunt's heart before Bellatrix could even reach her holster. Sloppy, very sloppy. But, after a few years training with the Aurors, everyone else seemed a bit sloppy these days. Bellatrix froze, smart enough to realise she could be dead in an instant if she did something stupid. Dora _was_ the named heir — if she killed someone trying to murder her over the title, it wouldn't even get to trial.

Actually, she could probably just go ahead and off Bellatrix right now and she wouldn't even get in the slightest bit of trouble for it. Well, outside of her mother being annoyed with her, anyway. But, luckily for Bellatrix, she wasn't that ruthless. So she just said, 'I'd think about that very carefully if I were you, Auntie.'

'You really think you could beat me, girl?' She said it all self-assured and dangerous, obviously making it a threat. But Dora wasn't convinced she believed it herself. There had been a slight hesitation at the beginning. And, well, if Bellatrix really thought she could win, she would have just yanked out her wand and cursed away. Not the subtlest woman in the world. Honestly, Dora had no clue how she'd ever gotten into Slytherin — _Dora_ was more Slytherin most of the time than she was, and she was a goddamn Hufflepuff.

'Hmm.' Dora pretended to think, turning up to the ceiling and tapping at her chin with a finger — though she kept her wand on Bellatrix, one eye watching. 'Well, just last week, we were doing some three-on-three practice fights, you know. I was with Sir Shacklebolt and Sir Williamson. We were fighting Madam Bones, Dame Longbottom, and Lady Potter. We won, by the way.' She was rather impressed with herself for that, actually. Shack and Kelvin weren't slouches themselves, but Bones, Alice, and Lily were absolutely ridiculous, they almost never lost. It had been a fluke, but she still felt awesome about it — she'd even been the one to stun Alice, it was great. 'And your duelling champion days were a _long_ time ago, Auntie. The question you should be asking is if _you_ really think you have any chance in hell.'

For a long moment, Bellatrix just stared at her, reddened face twisted in a snarl, fingers twitching in want of her wand. Long enough Dora wondered if she was actually going to have to kill her aunt today. But then, with a dismissive sniff Dora didn't believe for a second, Bellatrix spun on her heel, gave Mum a quick glare, then vanished through the fireplace in a flash of green.

'Well,' Dora said, yanking her wand back up her sleeve with another twitch of magic, 'that was fun.'

Mum was staring at her, eyes slightly narrowed. Frowning like that always made her similarity with Bellatrix more pronounced — because Bellatrix was always glaring or grimacing or something, get it. 'You didn't have to come down. I was handling it.'

Dora shrugged. 'It is going to be my job soon, keeping her from making a nuisance of herself. Sooner she gets used to listening to me, the better.'

Yeah, it didn't look like Mum bought that. Doubtful look unmoving on her face, her eyebrows slowly slid up her forehead.

'Alright, fine,' Dora said with a sigh. 'I was bored of studying, and this seemed far more interesting. Happy?'

'You'd rather start a fight with my sister than study?'

'Hey, she started it.'

'You're the one who drew your wand on her.'

'She started reaching for hers first. I was just faster.'

Mum didn't exactly roll her eyes — Dora was pretty sure she'd _never_ seen her mother do anything like that, she didn't approve. But her eyebrows turned around a bit, one higher than the other, which Dora thought was pretty much the same thing for her. She pulled one arm away from her chest, pointed up toward Dora's room. 'Go. Study.'

'I'm twenty years old, Mum, you're still ordering me around?'

'Of course.'

Dora considered rolling her eyes, but stuck her tongue out at Mum instead — she _hated_ it when she did that. Before Mum could say anything, she spun around and dashed up the stairs, warmth running through her as she shrunk herself down again, transfiguring her clothes tighter around her to match, trying not to giggle like the child she suddenly looked like.

And completely failing.

* * *

 _June 3rd, 1994_

* * *

Gwenaëlle Heather. That's the name they'd gone with. Hermione had been a bit surprised when they'd told her. She'd guessed that one name would be French and one would be English — they'd done the same with her, after all. The middle name being after a relative wasn't new either: Mum's grandmother had been named Heather, and Hermione's Jeanne was after her grand-père. If she'd been asked, she probably even would have guessed that her parents would have switched which name was English and which was French. It seemed the thing to do.

But, well. Gwenaëlle wasn't technically French. It was Breton. It was the _gwenn_ that gave it away: it was almost identical to the Brīþwn and Welsh words for white (in the feminine inflection, anyway), and she knew the three languages were closely related. But, as far as she knew, they didn't really have any Breton family. It had struck her as weird, at first.

But, after a bit of thought, she'd developed a suspicion she knew what her parents had been thinking. Gwenn was a witch too, and her parents had known she would very likely be. It was apparently very rare, with full siblings, for one to be magical and the other not. Borders between magical nations didn't always match the borders of the non-magical countries they shared space with. In fact, it was more common for them not to — magical nations usually followed cultural and linguistic boundaries, which non-magical countries did only rarely. Even non-magical France, for example, was mostly split between three entirely different magical nations, speaking three different languages. The point was, while Brittany was part of non-magical France, on the magical side it was part of Britain. Near as she could tell, her parents had picked a name that wouldn't seem _too_ out there to normal people in France — or magical people there, most likely — but would also seem like a native name in magical Britain.

It was weird. She wasn't sure what to think about it.

Not that she was entirely sure what to think of Gwenn in general. She was just so... She wasn't sure what word she was looking for here. It was... It was hard to believe she was a person? If that made sense. She was just so...not person-like. All tiny and incorrectly proportioned, and completely incapable of any communication at all. It just seemed somehow incongruous. That this was a human being, who a few years from now would be able to play, and read, and joke, just as any other person. It just...didn't seem quite right. She'd known intellectually everyone started like this, but... Maybe it was just throwing her off because she'd never really seen much of any baby before. She had a couple cousins back in France who had young children, but she'd only seen them a couple times, and she hadn't really gotten close.

So. It was weird.

She still spent a lot of time staring at her new baby sister, though. She wasn't entirely sure why, to be honest. Right now, she was in her parents' bedroom — Dad was off at work, but Mum was asleep on the bed, in the same pyjamas Hermione swore she'd been wearing the whole last week. It was the middle of the day, but, baby. Hermione had taken one of her books with her, curled up in an armchair by the window. Which would probably screw up her recall, but she'd just been intending to read for fun anyway. But she'd ended up not reading much anyway, just staring at Gwenn a short distance away, laid out asleep on the bed, Mum curled a bit around her. She had no idea how long she'd been staring.

It was just weird.

' _Hermione_.'

She jumped, glancing around. The whisper had been a bit harsh, with a tone of slight exasperation — she got the impression it wasn't the first time she'd been called. After a second, she noticed it'd been Mum. She was still curled up on the bed, looking over at Hermione with a tired smile pulling at her lips. 'Ah, yeah?'

'You gonna get that?'

Hermione frowned — get _what_? She noticed Mum's eyes flick to the side, so she followed her gaze to the window, and nearly jumped again. There was a rather smallish barn owl sitting on the outside windowsill, giving her a flat, annoyed kind of look. For a second she almost started panicking, but no, the rest of her year wouldn't be finishing their exams for a couple weeks yet, this couldn't be from Hogwarts. It was the Potter owl, she decided after a moment. One of them, anyway, they had a couple. Couldn't remember the thing's name, which meant she'd probably never been told. A little sheepishly, she wondered to herself how long it'd been trying to get her attention.

Setting her book aside, she unlatched the window, slowly opening the window, hoping it wouldn't creak too noisily and wake up Gwenn. The owl didn't bother trying to come inside, just held out a leg toward her, so Hermione quickly removed the scroll of slightly damp parchment. The second she was done, the owl took off, disappearing out into the drizzly summer day.

Alright, then.

'Who's it from?' Mum asked from the bed as Hermione unrolled the letter.

She recognised the handwriting instantly. 'Ah, Charissa.'

 _Hermione—_

 _You'll probably read about it in ðe paper tomorrow, but I þought I'd warn you ahead of time. My great-aunt Cassiopeia died ðis morning. She was Lady Black, so ðe entire House will be doing a Mīns. We aren't technically Blacks, but my grandmoðer was, and Cassiopeia always liked my faðer — and my moðer, even if she would never admit to it in public — and she was always nice to us. So, we'll be doing an Yxþaðis._

 _So, just writing to tell you our lessons wiþ Mum and Dora ðis week are boþ cancelled. Ðe ones wiþ Mum will start up again next weekend, but Dora's are probably cancelled indefinitely. She will probably be Lady Black now, after all, she'll be busier._

 _I'd advise you don't come over like you usually do. Mourning is raðer boring, you wouldn't even be able to just go into ðe library and read alone wiðout looking extremely rude. And ðere'll probably be some guests around off and on who probably wouldn't be very nice to you. Some of my pureblood relatives, ðey're awful. I know Mum and I have trouble not cursing ðem sometimes. I'd raðer not subject you to ðem if at all possible._

 _I was just allowed to send you ðis quick before Yxþaðis starts, but I won't be able to again until it's over. I'll owl you ðen._

— _Charissa_

Hermione was a little disappointed. Which she then immediately felt guilty about. Oh, yes, it was so _inconvenient_ for her Charissa's aunt had died, how awful! God, she could be so ridiculous sometimes. She hadn't met Lady Black herself, and she knew Charissa wasn't all that close to her, but Hermione knew she'd mentioned her a few times. And never negatively, like she often did with...honestly, most of her extended and even some of her immediate family. No, wait, not never. Charissa had complained a couple times about her not intervening when a couple relatives had been making racist comments about Lily in her presence — those sort of comments the exact reason why Charissa had suggested Hermione stay away for the week. Other than that. And she was sure there were people devastated by Lady Black finally succumbing. So that was really an awful thing for her to be feeling.

Speaking of feeling awful and guilty...

Hermione frowned at Charissa's handwriting, and just felt awful all over again. It'd been over a month, and she still hadn't given Charissa a response about that...asking her out...thing...? They'd talked about it once since, shortly after their early arrival at home for the summer, but that had mostly been... Well, to be honest, Hermione had been morbidly curious how serious Charissa was about the whole thing, so she'd kind of tried to fish for details. One thing still stuck out at her: Charissa had first noticed what was happening _almost a year ago_. She'd been doing her own fishing, trying to figure out if Hermione would freak out if she told her or not, since _December_. That... That just wasn't what she'd expected, okay.

Well, that wasn't the only thing. At one point, Charissa had casually rattled off a long list of compliments that still made Hermione blush just remembering, so she tried to avoid it.

'Everything okay?'

Hermione blinked, glanced up at Mum. 'Oh, sure. Just, Lady Black died. She's Charissa's great-aunt, so they'll be doing an Yxþaðis.'

Frowning a little, Mum tried to repeat the word, but didn't quite pronounce it correctly.

'Oh, it's a traditional practice. Mourning period sort of thing. Far as I can tell, it's... Well, it's basically shiva. Not exactly the same, of course, but the right basic idea.'

Mum nodded at that. Hermione had expected that explanation to make sense to her — Gran was Jewish. Well...sort of? It'd never actually been explained to her all that well, but she was pretty sure her grandmother had been born into a Jewish family that wasn't very serious about being Jewish. Sort of like how Dad's side wasn't at all serious about being Christian. If that made sense. Even though Mum hadn't been raised Jewish much at all, she'd been exposed to enough over the years that she'd learnt a fair bit.

Actually, now that Hermione thought about it, she didn't know what all Yxþaðis entailed. Charissa had only told her about it because she'd seen people wearing simple robes and these weird shawl things a couple times when they should have been in uniform, and she'd been curious why no one was calling them out on flagrantly violating the dress code. She knew special dress like that was part of Yxþaðis — and the first week of Mīns, actually, but she was pretty sure that was just Yxþaðis — but, really, she didn't know what else went into it. She was half-tempted to floo over to the Potters' anyway just out of curiosity...but that was probably a bad idea.

'Was that all that was bothering you?'

Hermione frowned. 'Hmm?'

'Just a thought. It looked your head went down a completely different tangent there for a second.'

With a glance up, Hermione saw Mum was still just watching her, that same smile still pulling at her lips. 'How did you know that?'

Her smile just widened. 'I'm your mother. I have powers.'

'And here I thought I was the only witch in the room.'

'Are you?' For a second, Hermione was confused, but Mum's eyes flicked down at Gwenn, making it rather obvious what she meant.

'Oh. Well, no, I guess I'm not.'

'You're sure?' She sounded slightly surprised — not so unusual, she guessed. Mum had said, when Hermione had asked once, that it had taken a couple years before things had started happening around Hermione, things her parents had later come to understand had been accidental magic. Technically, any adult mage worth their salt could come over, do a quick detection spell on Gwenn, and tell them at any moment, but they hadn't wanted to bother anyone with it.

Hermione shrugged. 'She didn't do anything, that I noticed. I can just feel it.' She set the letter from Charissa aside, slid off the chair to move closer to the bed, kneeling on the floor. Not quite touching her, she drifted her hand over her baby sister. Soft tingles of magic sparked against her hand — undifferentiated, unfocused, unlike anything she'd felt from a person before, but certainly there. 'It's hard to explain. I can feel magic a little bit, you know.' Mum nodded — she'd mentioned that plenty of times before. 'Gwenn is...sort of warm, I guess, stings a bit like static.' Her hand retreated, and she folded her arms on the edge of the bed, set her chin down on the middle. 'I'm not an expert, but I'd say she's definitely a witch.'

Mum didn't respond much to that, but she did sigh slightly. With relief, Hermione was pretty sure. Mum had told her about how Lily's sister had hated her for years, essentially because Lily had magic and she didn't. It had taken some time for Mum and Dad to get used to the idea of having a witch in the family, she had noticed, but now that they had, she guessed they thought it would be easier if Gwenn could follow after her. They probably weren't entirely wrong, either.

But that wasn't enough to distract Mum, not even close. 'You didn't answer the question.'

Hermione summoned a pout; Mum just grinned at her. 'It's nothing.'

'You sure?'

She already had her mouth open when she suddenly hesitated. It wouldn't be a horrible thing to tell her, would it? She might even have advice. Mum was far better with people, and...social...stuff? Than she was. Yes. And, well. If she was going to tell her, now would be a good time. When she couldn't go hide in the Potter library, and Mum was actually awake — Gwenn was really messing with her sleep schedule. So...sure, why not?

Oh, great. Now she had to actually figure out _how_ to say it. She'd hardly even considered how to bring this up to her parents at all. Er...

Well, she'd just get right to the point, then. Honestly, she didn't think how exactly she went about saying it really mattered, might as well just get it out and move on. Really, she'd been being so silly lately. Trying to keep her voice as level and casual as she possibly could, Hermione said, 'Back in April, Charissa, erm... She, well, asked me out.'

Mum hardly reacted at all. Her smile still lingering from before didn't slack at all, she didn't even twitch, motionless save for breath, her thumb ghosting across Gwen's chest, but Hermione did notice a single eyebrow slowly raising. 'Okay.'

Hermione wasn't sure what to think about how much this was apparently not a surprise at all. So she chose to just ignore it. 'Well, I just—' She frowned to herself for a second, shrugged. 'I dunno. I didn't know what to say, so I asked for some time to think about it and, well...it's been over a month now, and I still haven't said anything about it one way or the other and, that's not, I'm starting to really think I...should?' Nope. She knew how to speak English. That sentence never happened. 'Like, I've made her wait too long. But it's all so complicated, I don't know what to say.'

Somewhere in the middle of that semi-coherent ramble, Mum's smile flickered away, and now she was frowning back at Hermione, looking a bit confused, if anything. 'You mean...'

When she didn't say anything more for long seconds, Hermione said, 'What?'

'You're saying you didn't say yes.'

'Erm...' Now it was Hermione frowning at Mum for a few seconds, no clue what to say. _What_? '...no?'

Mum blinked at her. Then again. She finally said, in a low, flat voice, 'Oh.'

Okay. Well. This conversation became dreadfully uncomfortable within the space of less than a single minute. Some sort of accomplishment right there. She could sort of infer what Mum was thinking, just from context, but... 'Did you think I would?'

Mum hesitated for hardly an instant. 'Well, I sort of thought you two were already—' She broke off suddenly, frowning to herself. 'Do you call it "dating" when you're fourteen?' After a quick moment of thought, Mum shrugged, said, 'Something, anyway. And you just hadn't gotten around to telling me yet. I was confident it happened shortly after you went back to school after Christmas.'

Hermione just stared at her. What... _what_?

Apparently, Mum picked up mostly on what she was thinking, because she shrugged a little, went on. 'It was rather obvious, really. Charissa wasn't exactly being subtle when she was here on Christmas Eve. I think she thought she was and, well, your father didn't catch it, but I noticed. She was...testing the waters, you might say. Either with you, or your father and me, or both.'

'I...' Hermione thought back to that night, flicking through the various discussions they'd had over the hours Charissa had been here. Nothing in particular stood out. Except for the religion bit, she guessed. Actually... Come to think of it, it hadn't escaped Hermione's notice that magical Britain was — how should she put it? — significantly more permissive in certain areas than she'd originally expected. When it came to sexuality, for example. For the most part, they didn't really care what people got up to. Certain things weren't decent to speak of in polite company, and the actual laws when it came to things like marriage were almost literally medieval, but what people did in private and who they did it with was considered exactly that: private, nobody else's business.

But, well. It would not be at all a shock to say that was _not_ how things generally worked on the non-magical side. There was a culture of modesty and shame on the non-magical side that, as far as she could tell, was almost entirely foreign to magical Britain. Homosexuality was still barely tolerated at all. Hell, until about twenty-five years or so ago, it'd been explicitly illegal. Taking a second to think about it, it was pretty obvious what Charissa blamed for these differences: Christianity. While there had, of course, been _some_ magical Christians over the last two millennia or so, it never had _nearly_ the penetration into magical society as it had into non-magical. She didn't think magical society was legitimately religious at all, actually, or at least not in a way most normal British people would recognise. Maybe a sort of vaguely-defined animism, little bits and pieces of ancestor worship here and there, but no real coherent beliefs and practices or anything. Definitely superstitious at times, but that was hardly the same thing. And certainly without the same sort of dictated personal morality a lot of religions had.

But, thinking about some things Charissa had said now and again over the last six months or so... Had Charissa been...scared Hermione would hate her? That was what Mum was implying, right? That was sort of sad, in retrospect...

She was supposed to be having a conversation with her mother right now. Right. 'Erm, how did you figure out she likes me, anyway? I had no idea.'

With another little shrug, Mum said, 'Just a thought I had, near the end of last summer.' _Last summer_? That would mean Mum had suspected for roughly as long as _Charissa_ had. 'She was far more obvious about it over the winter break, though.' Before Hermione could ask, Mum added, 'She watches you.'

Hermione frowned at her. 'She watches everyone.'

Mum didn't have anything to say to that. She just smirked a little.

Okay. That was mildly annoying. 'What makes you think _I_ like _her_ , anyway?'

'Don't you?'

'I— Well, if I do, I haven't noticed.'

Mum's smirk pulled into a grin. A teasing grin, Hermione could tell instantly. 'This and that.'

'Like what?'

'I don't know if you noticed, but you grab at her a lot. Her hand, her arm, whatever. Oh—' Her grin sharpened even further. '—and you blush when she smiles at you.'

'I— I don't—' She had no idea how to respond to that, that's what she didn't. She'd certainly never noticed that. Well, the first thing, maybe a little, but she hadn't thought there'd been anything weird about that. Was it just her, or was it warm in here all of a sudden? There were certainly girls at Hogwarts who were a lot more, erm, affectionate than she and Charissa were. She started making a list in her head, then had to immediately cross off a pair — she'd stumbled across Susan and Abbott kissing a couple months ago, and if that hadn't come as a surprise. Apparently only a surprise to her, though, no one else hardly even blinked. Finally she found something to say about the second thing. 'She hardly ever smiles, though.'

Her grin turning into a plain old smirk, Mum said, 'That just makes it special, doesn't it?'

With a groan, Hermione unfolded her arms, let her head fall across the smooth, cool surface of the bed, meshed her fingers together on top, holding herself down. She felt the move necessary, since she'd immediately felt heat start rushing to her face, and thought this the best way to retain at least some singular shreds of her dignity. 'Shut up.' And there the rest of it goes, damn it. Here she thought she was supposed to be clever. At least the cool sheets weren't awful against her cheeks. Not a total loss.

When Mum spoke, her voice was still a bit teasing, but with a sort of odd tone alongside, sort of wistful, if slightly melodramatic. 'Alas, my little girl is growing up. So much as I may have dreaded it, I knew this day would come. If it had to happen eventually, at least it did when I have an all new one to sink my motherly sorrows into. Seems appropriate, somehow.'

Hermione had to admit it kind of did, in a weird way.

So... Well, fine. She wasn't entirely convinced Mum was right. Just because Hermione had gotten a bit flustered, she'd admit, with what Mum had been saying, just that didn't mean she was right. But, well. She could give it a shot, at least. It wouldn't be the end of the world. She'd just have to explain to Charissa she wasn't completely sure. Just one date to see. The thought immediately appealed to the not-insignificant empiricist in her, and she almost nodded to herself. Yes, that would be the thing to do. She'd been so silly the last weeks. Really, how was she supposed to come to any conclusion just thinking about it in her head? That was silly. Just silly.

Which didn't mean she had no concerns about it. After a second of thought, she decided to just say it. Mum might have a thought. With her face still pressed against the bed, her voice probably came out a bit muffled, but oh well. 'My sponsorship with House Potter, though.'

'Yes?'

'Well, what if it goes really badly, and we're not friends anymore? It can be really difficult for people like me.' Or people simply expelled from their Houses. She'd been rather disturbed to read just how many of a person's legal rights were bound to their membership of a House, any House, to represent them. She'd be protected by Hogwarts until she graduated, and she would probably be covered during her Mastery study, and likely from her job, depending on what exactly she ended up going into. But it was somewhat risky.

'Hmm.' Mum hesitated for a moment — not out of not having an answer, Hermione thought, just not sure how to say it. 'I've been considering that problem. Lily put me in contact with someone, and we're working on a solution.'

Hermione blinked, unfolded her hands from her hair so she could look up. Mum was still smirking at her. But she thought not really _at_ her, if that made sense, thinking about something else. 'Working on what?'

'Let's just say, if all goes well, shortly after your fifteenth birthday you won't need House Potter's protection at all.' That wasn't really an answer. But Hermione didn't miss how her mother's smirk had turned decidedly predatory, almost gleefully so.

Nope. Nevermind. She didn't want to know.

* * *

 _June 22nd, 1994_

* * *

The voice came in a sharp, harsh hiss, but high and soft enough the speaker obviously hoped no one would overhear. 'Bellatrix Violetta Lycoris, you're wrinkling your robes. You _will_ stand up straight and behave yourself.'

Bella glanced up at the woman she was dreadfully unfortunate enough to share half her genes with. (Over half, technically, as her parents were apparently third cousins.) Not a full glance — her eyes just flicked in that direction quick. As expected, her _dear_ mother had made a challenge for the Black title. In Bella's name, since she'd been permanently excluded from the succession for some reason no one had explained to her. She'd heard just a couple days ago they'd be in the Council of Family Law today. Also as expected, Bellatrix — and did she ever _hate_ that her useless mother had named her after herself, the self-important hag — had shown up at Ted and Andi's early in the morning to drag her off to get ready. All three of the Tonkses had had wands in hand to stop her, but Bella had just given them a helpless shrug, and they'd let her go.

As much as she really hated Bellatrix, she doubted she'd enjoy watching Dora kill her.

If she'd known what she'd be subjected to this morning, she probably would have hesitated a bit longer. Worst trip to Diagon Alley _ever_. Bellatrix had dragged her off to Twilfitt and Tattings, had her fitted for robes that were far too expensive to be putting a child in. Of course, she hardly considered herself a child at all anymore, but that wasn't really the point. She _did_ tend to be a bit rough with her clothes, though, which _was_ the point, so she still thought it was stupid. It had taken a long argument to get Bellatrix to stop trying to force her into these awful tight lacy things, blech. And by a long argument, she meant she'd threatened to just set fire to whatever Bellatrix picked, and even proven she could cast a flame-freezing charm accurately enough to protect her skin while leaving her clothes vulnerable, so it wouldn't even be hard. It was possible she'd picked up that pyrophilic habit from Charissa — she wasn't nearly as good with fire magic as her elder cousin, but she did appreciate the dramatic effect quite a bit. In the end, she got the impression Bellatrix actually approved of her own selection of subtly duellist-style trousers and tunic, even if she wasn't much happy with it herself. The acromantula silk was all uncomfortably smooth, and the gaudy silver fastenings and chains and shite were just making her feel...weird. Still wasn't used to the stupid cloak trash that went over it either. And then there'd been the jewelry Bellatrix had made her wear. Awful.

By little comments Bellatrix kept dropping, and an occasional expression here and there, she got the very clear feeling Bellatrix expected her to feel, what, grateful or something, to her _mother_ — ergh, she hated even _thinking_ that — dragging her out and buying her all this junk. She couldn't help wondering how Bellatrix could possibly think she would be. But, then, Bellatrix hardly knew her at all, so it wasn't surprising she'd judged her reaction so badly.

And that full name business right there. She wasn't sure what Bellatrix was going for with that. For one thing, that name was mostly new to her. The name on her muggle birth certificate (she'd checked) was _Bella Violet Black_ — she hadn't even known it was properly _Bellatrix Violetta_ , and the Lycoris was out of nowhere. She'd been a bit surprised to see her "real" name on that first letter from Hogwarts. She understood the theory of what Bellatrix was trying to get at. A little bit, anyway, the whole full name thing people did. But, in a lot of ways it didn't quite feel like her name anyway. So it naturally had very little effect on her. And she didn't so much care about Bellatrix's opinion of her anyway. So she naturally had very little reason to comply.

But she pulled back her shoulders anyway, stopped dragging her shuffling feet across the smooth stone floors. If only so Bellatrix would go back to ignoring her existence as soon as possible.

And to think, all those times growing up she'd wished her real parents were around. By now she was mostly wishing Bellatrix would just leave her the fuck alone. If she could go back in time, she'd go and tell her five-year-old self to be careful what she wished for.

To be entirely fair, she still hadn't met her father yet, but she doubted he was much better than Bellatrix.

Of course, Bellatrix hadn't wasted the entire morning prettying her up. There'd been a bit of coaching about what exactly was going to be going down today. Apparently, the entire little hearing was going to be done in Brīþwn, for some reason nobody had explained and Bella didn't care enough about to ask. Bellatrix had made sure she could say yes and no and thank you — Bella could only assume she intended to cue her somehow — and taught her a lengthy phrase to repeat at the appropriate time, agonising over the pronunciation a bit. Not that Bella had made it easy for her: she'd spent the entire time intentionally making mistakes, messing up the pronunciation in obvious but believable ways. Partially just to annoy Bellatrix, but partially because she didn't want to give away that she was already fluent in Brīþwn.

Which made twelve, after English (obviously), Welsh, Irish, French, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Punjabi, Latin, Polish, and Italian. She'd noticed when she was only six or so — the age she'd been when she'd consciously realised she could speak four languages already, when most people her age were still working on the one — that she picked up languages a lot more quickly than other people. She hadn't even been sure exactly _how_ she learned so quickly, since she seemed to know words without having to hear or read them, proper grammar without being told. Once she'd learned magic legitimately existed, and she wasn't just crazy, she'd immediately assumed it was some sort of magic something. Which she'd confirmed later, looking through the library.

Charissa had told her her theory that her father was Bartimeus Crouch, so she'd been looking the name up out of curiosity, and had been a bit surprised to find the name on the cover of one of the school's biographies. It'd taken a couple seconds to figure it out it wasn't about her father — it was her grandfather instead — but it'd still answered the lingering question about her talent with languages. Her grandfather was known to speak some two hundred languages, even a number of non-human languages that were supposed to be impossible for humans to properly pronounce, which was apparently quite useful as a diplomat. The book had said this was because he was an omniglot, so she'd had to look that up too. Apparently, it was a mostly hereditary talent through which people could rapidly learn new languages by, basically, copying it out of the heads of the people they're talking to — exactly how isn't known, but it _is_ known it's mind magic. It only worked with people who were sufficiently fluent, and languages with specific magical properties (like Mermish) could mess it up a bit, but it was so smooth and easy she was never even conscious of it happening.

It'd only taken roughly three weeks of their Brīþwn language class, lingering after the end of class to chat with the Professor, until she'd been able to speak the language perfectly fine. Which now made that class dreadfully boring. She was hoping to test out this year, so she didn't have to go. And maybe get tutors for random languages to come in on weekends, if she could talk Vector into it.

So, yes, she could speak Brīþwn, she thought better than Bellatrix could herself. And, no, she didn't intend to be all quiet and obedient through the hearing. She didn't intend that at all.

Because, dammit, she didn't _want_ to be Lady Black. She'd rather Dora have it. Something that hadn't crossed Bellatrix's mind at all, apparently.

But, then, she hadn't even asked, had she? Not that she had honestly expected Bellatrix to. She never asked Bella anything. She just _told_ — the rare times she was around to say anything, anyway. And she _was_ rather sure this challenge was the entire reason Bella existed in the first place, the exact thing that had been in Bellatrix's head when she'd been screwing that Crouch bloke. Which made Bella a bit sick whenever she thought about it, so she usually tried not to.

Finally, they were walking out of the gleaming Ministry hallway and into a darker, wood-panelled room. Bella immediately noticed, and was unsurprised, that Bellatrix had arranged their arrival to be just as most everyone else was already settling in, just before the start of the hearing. At the opposite side from the door was a long table, carved from a dark red wood, bent into a shallow angle in two places, seating five people in intricate robes and greying hair. Before the table were a collection of narrow armchairs, all a shining black, a few dozen of them, split by an aisle down the middle. Most were empty, but the rest held members of House Black. One side of the aisle was far more populated than the other, the greater holding seemingly every Black she'd ever met (and then some), and the lesser only three people — when she spotted Dora in the front row, she decided the House had split themselves based on which prospective Lady Black they supported.

It did not at all surprise her that most of the House had chosen Dora's side. Lady Cassiopeia had chosen her, after all. That, and she was much better at getting people to like her.

So, when Bellatrix started leading Bella to the empty side of the seats, Bella split off, and headed right for Dora. She ignored the hissing from Bellatrix, and in a moment was standing right in front of Dora. The sight of Dora in her proper, public face just didn't seem fitting, it struck her as _wrong_ every time she saw it. Aware everyone was staring at her, and not really caring, she gave Dora a quick little bow, meeting her amused smirk with an eyebrow raised. She nearly just said _Cousin_ in English, but changed her mind at the last second. Instead she said, 'I apologise for running off, Cousin.' In Brīþwn.

Her eyes flicked to Bellatrix, who'd half-followed her, a short distance away, just in time to see shock at the smoothly-pronounced Brīþwn spread across her face, followed by an increasing red tint of fury. Priceless.

Dora must have noticed it too — her smirk only widened. 'No apology necessary, Cousin. Aunt Bellatrix has a history of not listening to the word _no_.' Bella heard snorts and titters from the Blacks in front of her. 'We saved you a seat.'

Oh, so that empty seat between Andi and Ted was for her. Alright then. With a quick _thank you_ to Dora, she slid over and sat down. The little chair was far more comfortable than she'd thought it'd be, for how thin it looked. Magic, most likely.

Bellatrix, looking absolutely livid — tee hee — glared at her for a few moments, then moved to take her own seat at the opposite side of the aisle. Out of curiosity more than anything, Bella leaned forward a little to look at the other three with her. One was a man, oh, perhaps in his thirties — he looked younger than that, but she was guessing high to account for how much slower magical people aged. He was fair, though not so pale as most Blacks she'd met, and with far lighter hair, a brownish colour just barely too dark to be considered properly blond, and _freckles_ , which she was _sure_ she hadn't seen on a Black ever. It took her a couple second, watching him stare back at her, to realise that was probably her father. Huh. She certainly looked far more like Bellatrix. She might have inherited the nose a bit, but other than that. Oh, and she probably got the omniglot thing through him, of course, but still.

Hmm.

The other two were women — old women. One was so grey and wrinkly Bella thought she had to be at least as old as Dumbledore, the other probably only a couple decades behind. Even as she watched, the younger one stood, helped the elder shakily to her feet, and slowly shuffled on to a row further back, on Dora's side of the room. Before they'd even sat, and after several glances back and forth between her and Bellatrix, Crouch sprung to his feet and followed them, leaving a murderous-looking Bellatrix alone.

Bella didn't even try to hide her grin.

Shortly after that, the hearing was called to a start. After a quick introduction from the Council, Bellatrix got to speak first — that's the way it worked, since she was the one to make the challenge. She was only half-listening, but Bella almost hoped losing the few supporters she'd had had thrown her off because...she just didn't make a very good argument. And she didn't make it coherently. Most of it consisted of insults, directed mostly at Dora, but also Ted and Andi, and even Cassiopeia and Arcturus. Not even very subtle insults either. Bella couldn't help thinking she was embarrassing herself more than anything. A couple of the people on the Council nodded every once in a while, so she could be wrong.

And then Bellatrix returned to her seat, and it was Dora's turn. She'd obviously chosen her words carefully — probably got Ted to help — because she didn't really sound much like herself. Or maybe that was the Brīþwn. Anyway, most of it ended up being about Cassiopeia. Unsurprisingly. All talking about how Cassiopeia had reversed a lot of the more controversial decisions made by Arcturus before her — revising some of their business arrangements and political alliances with other Houses, welcoming expelled members back to the family, things like that. How it was fully Dora's intention to continue on in the spirit of that legacy. She hinted at one point that she also happened to be the most magically powerful person in the House, which, since she was a metamorphmaga and an Auror and everything, was probably even true. She was hitting all of the Council's buttons she could, Bella thought. And she managed to make her whole point without saying a single word about Bellatrix. Classy.

And clever. She had to know the Council was probably going to ask Bella to speak before deciding. She'd simply be honest, and her honest opinion was not at all to Bellatrix's benefit. The same things that would make Dora seem arrogant or petulant, Bella could say freely, and Dora would come out spotless.

Which meant she didn't even have to hold back. Should be fun.

When Dora sat again, a privacy charm of some kind went up around the Council — they were obviously talking to each other, but Bella couldn't hear anything. Glancing around, she saw a couple of the Blacks, especially Andi and Bellatrix, looked somewhat nervous, but Dora hardly seemed concerned at all. Could be cheating with occlumency, or even just freezing her face somehow, but still. She also noticed, near the back of the occupied seats, Sirius and Charissa's father James — his mother was Dorea née Black, so he'd been invited — huddled together snickering about something. Honestly, how old were they? A quick glance at Dorea, sitting a few seats away, showed she wasn't any more impressed than Bella was. The thought made her smile again.

After a few moments, the privacy charm fell, and the old lady sitting in the middle of the table said, 'Before we come to a decision, the Council must note we have not heard from the claimant named in the challenge. Is Bellatrix Violetta Lycoris here?'

Bella tried not to roll her eyes at the full name, stood and walked over to stand before the center of the table. 'That would be me.'

The woman blinked, seemingly surprised. Apparently, she hadn't expected Bella to actually be able to speak Brīþwn, and she had to wonder if Bellatrix had spoken to her beforehand. 'Do you have any statement to make pertaining to the challenge for the title of Lady Black made on your behalf?'

'A request.' She waited an instant for the woman to nod. 'Give it to Dora.'

The noises from behind her were mixed — she heard a few sighs, perhaps relief, a few chuckles and snickers, one quiet groan of frustration that had to be Bellatrix. In front of her, the Council glanced between each other for a moment, a man to the woman's right eventually speaking for them. 'Well, this is unorthodox.' He didn't seem all that bothered by it. If anything, the old man looked amused, a grin on his wrinkly face and a twinkle in his eye. 'If you did not want the title, why was the challenge made at all?'

'Well, my dear, _beloved_ mother didn't exactly _ask_ my opinion, see. I imagine her face is rather red right about now.'

The man's eyes flicked to the side, whatever he saw there setting his eyes to twinkling even more. 'So it is.'

'If I could ask,' said yet another elderly woman, sitting in one of the places to the left, 'why _don't_ you want the title? Not quite what we expected.'

Didn't seem all that unexpected to Bella at all, considering she hadn't even been aware the House even _existed_ until roughly a year ago, but she didn't think most people would follow that. She hesitated for a moment, considering how to frame her point. When she stumbled on an idea, she felt a smirk twitch at her lips. 'Because I'm a Slytherin.'

The Council glanced at each other. 'Oh?'

'I'll admit,' she said with a shrug, 'part of it is just personal. I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't know this — Bellatrix over there left it out of her story, see — but I wasn't raised in the magical world. Before starting at Hogwarts, I had only met one mage my entire life, and her only twice, and not for very long. I may be pureblood, but in many ways, I'm practically a muggleborn.'

She didn't miss the looks of distaste at the word flash across three of the faces before her. Which was precisely why she'd said that — she'd heard the Council didn't like muggleborns. Before she could go on, one of the men said, 'If you grew up with the muggles, how do you speak Brīþwn so well?'

Oh, right. Some purebloods were raised on Brīþwn, but it'd be very unusual for a muggleborn her age to be nearly so good at it. 'I'm an omniglot. I didn't even know Brīþwn even existed until I started at Hogwarts. But, anyway, my _mother_ abandoned me in the muggle world—' Which would lose Bellatrix some points with these people. Not thought out so well, _Mother_. '—only showing her face a few minimal times, and every time she's spoken to me since she's been nothing but an arrogant, bigoted, self-involved, authoritarian, obnoxious shrew. Think poorly of me if you will, but I absolutely _loathe_ my mother. There are few people in this world I hate more. So, personally, outside of any other considerations, I'd be tempted to reject the title just to annoy her.'

Bella paused a moment to turn and look over her shoulder at Bellatrix. Oh, _wow_ , was she _furious_. Face red and all scrunched it hardly looked human anymore. Tee hee. Bella gave her a little wave and a cheeky grin before turning back to the Council.

'And then consider that I didn't even know House Black even existed until a year ago, and have no particular desire to waste my time running the House myself when I'm older, and it's just not something I'm interested in.

'So,' she said with a slightly dismissive shrug, 'those are the personal reasons. And they would be enough on their own. But they're not even the most important ones. If you think about it, the most persuasive reason for me to be sabotaging myself like I am right now really is quite obvious: why would I choose the losing side?' The Council gave each other looks at that. 'Think about it. Bellatrix is a pureblood supremacist _twat_.' That word she slipped out in English — Brīþwn didn't have a perfectly equivalent one she could think of off-hand. The old fogies in front of her seemed not at all impressed with her language. 'The only reason this challenge is even happening is because Bellatrix knows that _you_ are all pureblood supremacist _twats_ —' Now they looked even more unimpressed. Tee hee. '—so are liable to give her the title just to keep it from going to a halfblood.

'She really doesn't have a leg to stand on, otherwise. I checked, the inheritance of our House works primarily on selection, more typical blood inheritance only consulted if a selection wasn't made before the previous one dies. Lady Cassiopeia chose Dora, so she already _is_ Lady Black. She doesn't actually need your rubber stamp for that — that's not how family law works, I checked that too. So, giving the title to Bellatrix, on absolutely no justifiable grounds within House Black law — Bellatrix was even explicitly removed from the line of descent before I was born — is effectively stripping the Lady of a Noble and Most Ancient House of her rights. I believe you call that line theft.' A few shocked expressions crossed four of the five faces in front of her, the last looking vaguely resigned. You all didn't think about that, did you? Idiots. 'Yeah, good job.

'And, see, I'm not the only person who knows this. I think it's pretty obvious if you look behind me.' Bella looked over her right shoulder, at the half of the room populated by Dora and the entirety of House Black; then she looked over her left shoulder, at only Bellatrix. She held out her arms and gave a helpless shrug, as if to say, _What can you do?_ 'So, consider for a moment. Bellatrix obviously feels threatened by Dora, or this wouldn't even be happening, and she has to know now that, as soon as I reach my majority, I'll be giving the title back to Cassiopeia's rightful heir. So, it's in Bellatrix's best interests to get rid of Dora. And if I can figure this out, I'm sure Dora and most everyone else in this room already has — Christ, I'm only _twelve_ , I shouldn't have to be spelling this out for you.

'So, we have on one side Dora, talented metamorphmaga and powerful Auror, certified deadly on her own, but also with the vast majority of the House at her back — and, when everyone learns the details of the line theft about to go down here, nearly everyone from all the Noble Houses. And then, on the other side, we have Bellatrix, by herself. A duelling champion, sure, but that was decades ago, a woman practically _nobody_ likes, her entire claim fuelled by increasingly outdated bigotry and vanishingly little else. An obvious gulf in awareness and intelligence as well — Bellatrix was surprised and angry I'm not standing with her, but Dora and her parents _saved me a seat_. It couldn't be more clear. I think everyone knows who, in that little war, is going to survive longer.

'So.' Bella crossed her arms, giving the Council a look just as unimpressed as the ones they were giving her a couple minutes ago. 'Why in hell would I choose the losing side, for something I don't even want?' With a shrug, she turned, and headed back to her seat a couple spaces away from Dora.

The hearing was over a couple minutes later, the challenge dismissed. Bella sighed — she couldn't help feeling slightly annoyed that the only parts of her little speech that likely made any difference were the bits about muggleborns and line theft.

She'd barely even gotten back to her feet after the dismissal when a multi-coloured blur was slipping past Andi, then roughly attached to her arm, nearly knocking her over. It took her a second to realise it was Dora. Her face had rounded a bit and gone perhaps slightly pinker and, while her hair was still _mostly_ black, the first inch or so had changed to a deep blue-purple colour. 'Come on—' Even as she spoke, Dora shrunk a bit, head slipping down until she was roughly Bella's height. '—I'm buying you ice cream.'

Bella could only blink at her for a second. 'What did I do to deserve ice cream?'

Her voice slightly breathless, Dora said, 'Just saying such nice things about me to those Council — what was the word you used? — _twats_.' A smirk pulled at Bella's lips. 'What was it you said, talented, powerful, and certified deadly? Why, I love you too, little Bella.'

She was half-positive Dora was teasing her a bit. But she didn't really mind — Dora sort of did that a lot. She assumed it was a big sister thing. 'Well, not gonna stop you.'

Wide grin on her face, flanked by a dozen chattering Blacks, Dora started leading her off toward the door by the arm. 'You were surprisingly wordy though. Which is funny, because you said right in your rant that you're twelve, but you didn't really talk like it.'

Bella wasn't sure what to say to that. But she didn't have to. Before she could even open her mouth, another voice from a few feet to her left said, 'Yes, we omniglots are like that sometimes.' Dora stuttered to a stop, turned in the direction of the voice. Bella was completely unsurprised to see Bartimeus Crouch standing a short distance away, the two old ladies he'd been with still sitting a bit behind him. He was staring at her with a somewhat wary smile on his soft face, a falsely casual tone on his voice. 'We often end up with a grasp of language far beyond what should be appropriate for our age — just how it works. Drove my poor mother mad, it did.'

And everyone else went eerily quiet, no one moving to speak. Great. That meant Bella would actually have to respond. But she had absolutely no idea what to say to him. She hadn't really expected she would be meeting her father today. She ended up just saying, 'Crouch.'

If she'd expected him to be offended by her being all, she didn't know, cold and distant or whatever, he didn't show it. If anything, he looked faintly amused. 'Black.'

Oh, great, everyone was being quiet again. This was just fun. Bella wavered for a moment, weighing her options. Starting off for the door was rather high on her list. Finally, she sighed, trying not to grit her teeth. This was just not something she wanted to deal with. Ever. 'Did you want something?'

And now he looked faintly uncomfortable. Hmm. 'Just to apologise, I guess.'

She couldn't stop herself, probably interrupted him. 'The hell for?'

'Well.' Yep, definitely uncomfortable now. He didn't shuffle or anything, or even break eye contact, but she did notice a little bit of fidgeting, a slight grimace. Looked like he didn't want to be dealing with this any more than she did. 'Sort of feel like I should. I didn't even know you existed until four days ago.'

Somehow, Bella really wasn't surprised. 'If you didn't even know I existed, what do you have to apologise for?'

For a second, Crouch just looked at her, eyebrow slightly raised. Then he shrugged. 'Good point. I don't know. It's just, I don't exactly have the best relationship with my own father, and I can't help but think I'm the terrible father now.'

Bella shrugged back. 'You don't have a terrible relationship with me. You have no relationship with me. And, well, I don't really need one.' She flicked her eyes to Andi and Ted, standing a bit to Dora's right, slow enough Crouch would probably see it.

'I didn't think you did,' he said, voice easy enough. 'Just thought I'd say it. If you change your mind — not that I expect you to — I'm around.'

Not really sure what to say to that, Bella nodded, then tugged at Dora's arm a little. A few minutes later, they were heading out into the Atrium, Bella dragged off into the floo on the way to Fortescue's.

Well. That had been interesting.

* * *

[One had been born in the forties, to House Ingham, she knew, but she'd sort of disappeared, and no one was sure where she'd gone. They did that sometimes.] — _Yes, a metamorphmaga was born into the NMA House of Ingham back in the forties. No, nobody knows where she is. In my headcanon, metamorphmaga are kind of odd. For one thing, unlike other fics I've read, they don't have any such thing as a "base" form. Their ability works by, basically, changing their base form at will. For that reason, they tend to have bad reactions to transfiguration-based hexes/curses/potions as well as certain healing spells/potions, and don't technically have a limited lifespan. They also tend to be abnormally talented magically — or, at least, there's the perception they're somehow more magical than normal people — so having one in the family is more a point of pride than anything, part of why Dora was made heir in the first place. One of the odder parts comes in with how, in part due to their extended lives and fluid physical form, their sense of identity tends to be a bit...inconsistent. While metamorphmaga may not technically age, they are sometimes said to have a lifespan: an individual hardly ever maintains the same identity for much longer than a century before just moving on, never to be heard from again. The Ingham mentioned is a bit unusual, in that she was hardly twenty when she grew tired of her birth identity, and vanished without a trace._

[She'd bet a thousand galleons on it.] — _That is 365 thousand dollars, by the way. The Blacks are rather filthy rich, but that's still a lot of money. She's pretty confident._

Jeanne — _I'm interpreting canon Jean as French. (Jean as an English name is a variant of Jane, both are from John.) However, Jean is masculine, so changed to Jeanne. It's possible I wasn't thinking and didn't fix that in an earlier chapter, I'd have to check. Actually, I thought of one and did check, and it's wrong in a Daily Prophet article in chapter ten, but I'm going to leave that wrong on purpose. Honestly don't remember if that was my intent at the time or not._

Mīns (IPA: /mỹz/) — _Brīþwn word for month; in this case, refers to a traditional mourning period of a month_

Yxþaðis (IPA: /ɨç.θɒ.ðɪs/) — _Brīþwn word for week; in this case, refers to a traditional mourning period of eight days (yxþa = eight; aðis = night)_

Shiva — _Hebrew, literally meaning seven; Jewish practice, a seven day mourning period for immediate family. If the non-Jews in the audience are curious, look it up, it's a real thing. The traditions are superficially similar, hence Hermione making the comparison in the first place._

[The other two were women] — _Lysandra Black (née Yaxley) and Charis Crouch (née Black), Bella's great-great- and great-grandmother on her father's side, in case you were wondering._


	20. Summer, 1994

_July 30th, 1994_

* * *

Charissa blinked at the curve of a cutting curse flying through the air toward her, frozen by shock long enough she barely had time to duck out of the way. She shivered at the wash of magic released as the charm dispersed against the familiar duelling wards just a few inches to her back, took a second to curse under her breath.

Apparently, Mum wasn't going quite as easy on her anymore. She wasn't entirely sure how to feel about that.

Well. If Mum was going to use potentially dangerous spells on her, then Charissa would just do it right back. She doubted she could actually harm her mother even if she wanted to, it didn't even make any difference. She rose from her crouched position, her willow wand immediately snapping into place. ' _Dīdūce!_ '

She was a little worried for a second when Mum didn't move her wand into position to deflect the curse. Instead, the yellow-orange light shot in at Mum's left forearm, a short flash of blue indicating the curse had hit. When the light was gone, and Charissa could see clearly again, Mum's arm was—

Charissa stared, absently aware her own mouth was gaping open. Mum had just taken a direct hit from a _blasting curse_ right on her arm, the charm activating properly and everything, but she'd somehow _resisted it without a scratch_. How the...

But then Mum's wand arm was moving again, the tip glowing a faint blue purple, drawing first one line then another in the air, forming a solid X-shape — two cutting curses, much like the previous. A second later, they were racing toward Charissa, a soft fluttering in the air telling her Mum was _already_ working on her next spell, some sort of elemental something.

Ducking down and to the right, Charissa silently snapped up a quick _prōtege_ , the pale blue shield quivering as the edge of her mother's curse fell against it, but holding. She glanced up, saw Mum was doing...one of those weird things she did sometimes. A halo of red-orange fire ran up from both elbows, over her shoulders, meeting behind her neck. No idea what that did, but now wasn't really the time to worry about that. A few dancing flicks of her wand and a muttered ' _percute_ ' cast a piercing curse, but she caught it before it could fire off with a quick circular flourish. Feeling the magic crackle down her nerves like slithering lightning, she brought up an image in her head, a single line splitting, dividing into three, felt the sudden rush of energy in the air around her wand. With a swipe of her wrist she fired off the duplicated curses, one, two, three.

It could be really hard to aim duplicated charms correctly, and she hadn't quite gotten the hang of it yet. The first dart of white-blue light went roughly for Mum's shoulder, but she just leaned out of the way, and the second missed entirely, slipping past her knee to join the other in splashing against the wards. The last was aimed almost perfectly, stretching straight for Mum's heart, but a tongue of fire from her shoulder reached out, enveloping the curse, and it simply...vanished.

Damn. Magic-disrupting fire. She was doomed. Or maybe...

Oh, this was a very, very bad idea. Bad, bad, bad.

Gritting her teeth, Charissa cast an incendiary curse, _cumigne lacerāns_ , caught it the same way she had the _percuti_ _ēns_ , but she didn't just make three of them. She duplicated the curse, again, again, again and again and again. When the power gathered in her wand hand grew too much, her skin so hot she thought it was almost sizzling, she let off a few of the curses, white-yellow light flashing away to explode at the ground near Mum's feet, the air abruptly hot with flame and heavy with noise. But Charissa didn't let all of them go, kept duplicating more and more and more, firing them off at where she guessed her mother was in a steady stream — she had to guess because Mum had vanished behind a screen of dust and fire almost right away.

After only a couple seconds, Charissa started to really not feel very good. Her nerves all over her body were alight, electricity sparking across every inch of her, head to toe. As she cast one incendiary curse after another, her wand hand increasingly began to hurt, a dull pain that gradually grew, her fingers twitching as the energy she was channelling seared her tendons. A pall of exhaustion slowly settled over her, a thick blanket that muffled her senses and slowed her movements. She thought her toes were even falling asleep. She wasn't altogether surprised: she didn't think she'd ever cast this much magic at once before. But she ignored it, kept casting, again, again, again.

Finally, she saw it: tendrils of Mum's darker fire reaching out, intercepting her curses before they could blow. Charissa didn't stop yet, still firing even though she was starting to get a little dizzy, waiting for Mum to reach out further. A little more. A little more.

There! Charissa released the remaining curses she had built up all at once, sending them into the wards above and around Mum, filling the circle with an almost blinding flash of white light. Loosing all that energy at once took more out of her than she'd expected, and Charissa staggered for a second, her vision flickering, before she managed to shake the weakness off, her wand aiming for Mum's elemental magic, now removed from her shoulders a few feet, extended out in front of her. She took a deep breath, calling up from her centre as much magic as would obey her, her whole body suddenly singing with exhilaration, the exhaustion thrown off in an instant. Summoning in her own mind a sort of haughty arrogance, a feeling that it was _she_ who gave orders, and anything she ordered to do something would naturally _do it_ , she willed the magic out and forward, and she spoke the incantation with a level, confident voice. ' _Is-ã lũgesat_.'

An interesting spell. When a person cast elemental magic — or a continuously-charged charm of any kind, come to think of it — the magic of the spell and the person's magic didn't entirely separate. The thin link fed the spell the power to endure, and some could be consciously commanded by the caster to a degree, though charms that complicated were rare. When Mum had used this particular bit of magic on her a few months ago, it'd hit her like a slap in the face. Even though she hadn't even known such a thing was possible before that moment, she'd recognised immediately what had just happened: the connection between her and her elemental spell had been severed, ownership (so to speak) instead passing over to Mum. She'd looked it up the first chance she'd gotten. So far, she'd practised it on a little bit of naturally burning fire, but not any actual magic.

So she hadn't expected what happened next. The thrill of the spell joining with her, the faint sense of the fire itself, she didn't feel any of that. Instead, the air almost instantly grew heavy with power as magic continued rushing through her in an unbroken stream, distracting tingles suddenly exploding across her skin, pins and needles so sharp it almost hurt, her head going all light and swirly, the beginnings of a giggle clawing at her throat. But she forced it down, focusing on the magic, willing herself not to waver, willing herself to _win_. Because she knew what this was, the book she'd found had mentioned it: Mum was trying to fight her off. The way the spell worked, it gave her a _massive_ advantage, massive enough she'd hardly even noticed it happening when Mum had used it on her, but Mum was naturally more powerful than her by enough of a margin (at least, for now, as young as Charissa was) she couldn't win outright. So she kept pushing, giving the spell more and more power even as her hand started shaking, just flat _refusing_ to lose.

The tingles in her toes, the fingers of her off hand, grew so constant she lost feeling entirely, and she felt the beginnings of a chill pass through her, the faintest impression of her breath visible on the air. If it was affecting her this much with the advantage the spell gave her, she couldn't imagine what Mum was going through right now.

Through the growing blurs and black spots in her vision, she saw Mum was moving. Her wandless hand lifting, fingers shakily tracing through the air, a glowing rune drawn before her one crooked line at a time. Charissa knew she should move. She had to get out of the way. But her magic was too far locked into the spell to break away, her feet too numb to lift. She couldn't cast more than one spell at a time. Mum used a mind magic trick to do that, she knew. Even if she knew how, it'd be impossible when just this one was taking this much out of her. She was going to lose.

The thought made her unaccountably annoyed.

The runic spell, it turned out, was a basic stunner — a red light suddenly appeared, dashing across the air straight for her. Charissa glared at it.

Trying to explain this moment later, she would decide to use the word _snapped_.

Already channelling more magic than was probably quite safe, impotently watching her defeat come down upon her, something within her _moved_. She wouldn't be able to say quite what. Somewhere that was a part of her yet not, somehow both within and without, suddenly imploded, like a dam bursting beneath far too much weight, life and magic crashing through her. Far too much, far, far too much. Pain and pleasure in equal proportion shot through every inch of her, ears filled with a soft whine and vision with white, grass in her nose and blood on her tongue. The world dropped away, all sense of time vanished, and she floated in the white for an eternal instant.

And the instant ended. She was lying face-up, she thought, her mother's arm behind her shoulders holding her up half-sitting. She knew it was her mother's arm because the magic inside it, pinching and tickling at her through their clothes, was very familiar, obviously hers, though she couldn't really say how exactly that was obvious. That would probably be Mum talking to her, then, but she couldn't really hear it very well, and the sounds didn't quite make sense. She blinked, trying to focus, but everything was pale, washed out, nothing but white and off-white blurs, she couldn't make anything out.

It didn't help that she was very distracted. It didn't really hurt anymore, but the delightful tingling and shivering was really making it rather hard to focus on anything else. And she felt so warm and smooth, like she was filled with oily bathwater, enough she couldn't help smiling to herself. Not warm to the same degree everywhere, though — it concentrated in a couple spots, one spot quite a bit more than the others. And that was very distracting. _Enticing_ , really, a seductive whisper running all through her absolutely refusing to be denied.

The tips of her fingers had just reached her waistband when Mum snatched her wrist, letting out a sharp sigh. 'You're damn lucky you didn't seriously hurt yourself.' That's funny, Mum made perfect sense now. She hadn't a second ago. Hmm.

'Huh?' she muttered with a groan — though, exactly what she was groaning about she wasn't entirely sure. Just seemed the thing to do. She shivered when the breeze set her own hair to tickling against her neck, and she completely failed to hold in a whimper when the tingling, the shivering, the warmth only turned sharper.

Mum let out another sigh. There was a brief squeezing, a tight pressure from all sides, and the ground underneath her was suddenly far more soft, smooth and wonderful on her legs and arms, the sliver of her back exposed. No, not the rock of their duelling circle, but cloth. Mum's hold on her disappeared, Charissa somehow knew she'd taken a couple steps away. 'Come downstairs when you're ready.' And then she was gone, the click of a door sounding soon after.

Ready? Was she supposed to be doing something to get ready? She wasn't really sure she...

She let the thought slip away, too distracted by the eager warmth within her, the feel of cool cloth against her cheek, to really pay attention to it too long.

She was entirely incapable of stopping herself. And it didn't even occur to her to try.

* * *

Charissa stepped into the library, finding Mum exactly where she'd expected: at the table, with a steaming cup of tea and an open book. She'd come here immediately after the white haze and the rational-thought-obliterating heat had faded away, the peculiar episode over.

Well, not quite immediately. She'd apparently done a bit of wandless magic in her delirium, _somehow_ , and had needed to find clothes that weren't scorched to shreds.

Taking a short breath, she walked over to the table, sunk down into a seat opposite her mother, who didn't glance up to her, just kept reading. She paused for a second, wondering if there was a particular reason for not looking at her, or if Mum were just finishing up a sentence quick or something. She guessed there was a half-decent reason — if her memory was working correctly, Mum had had to physically restrain her from half-consciously touching herself right in front of her, which was a bit embarrassing in retrospect. 'Okay,' she said, 'what the _hell_ was that?'

Mum shrugged, set her book aside, open with the spine up, before looking up at Charissa; she was a little relieved to notice she didn't look too exceptionally uncomfortable. 'You just overchannelled a bit. And, if I'm not mistaken, cracked into that fourth register of yours Ollivander mentioned for the first time, which you obviously weren't prepared for.'

Oh. Right, she did vaguely remember something about her apparently having a Faetouch in the form of a fourth register...not that she was entirely sure what a "register" was, or what effect having a fourth one would have. Or if it being Fae magic was relevant or not. Wasn't really something she was well-read on. The first part of the explanation didn't really do much for her either. 'Overchannelled? Pretty sure I've heard that term, but I'm not sure what it means.'

Mum shrugged again, took a slow sip from her tea before answering. 'I think I have to go into fairly esoteric magical theory for this to make sense, so prepare yourself for another one of my annoyingly verbose lectures.'

Charissa just rolled her eyes.

A smirk pulling at her lips, Mum started with, 'Despite what a lot of people seem to think, mages and muggles are not actually all that different on a magical level. By which I mean we don't hold more magic within us to any significant degree, though what we do have is a bit more active than theirs, meddling with our minds and bodies in ways theirs, for the most part, doesn't. Which isn't really too surprising, when you think about it. Our magical abilities cannot be because we _contain_ more magic than them — organic materials are downright terrible at holding magic, we'd be incinerated from the inside out.

'In introductory magic theory, you were told that when you cast a spell you are taking your internal magic, forming it with your will, and enforcing its pattern on the world around you. That picture isn't quite accurate. In reality, you are forming magical energy much as you were taught, yes, but the magic itself does not come _from_ you, but somewhere else. It is merely channelled _through_ you. In much the same way your wand further focuses your intent, in fact.'

Charissa had to blink at that. That made...absolutely no sense. 'If the magic doesn't come from us, where _does_ it come from?'

'No one knows.' At Charissa's disbelieving stare, Mum just smiled. 'I'm serious, no one knows. The traditional theory is that we essentially suck up ambient magic from the environment and direct it to our needs, but that is demonstrably inaccurate. If you magically isolate a small area — say, with wards much like the ones used in duelling circles — and then cast a fair amount of magic inside it for a period of time, all analysis spells will note an _increase_ in the ambient magic within the isolated area. In fact, near as anyone can tell, the magnitude of all ambient magic the world over has been slowly increasing over human history. Descriptions of natural magical phenomena have gradually grown more frequent and more extreme. The most solid proof, perhaps, is seen in very old wards that are observed to be more powerful now than accounts from the era of their creation state they once were, some even falling into a sort of destructive disharmony because, due to the increased flow of power, they are no longer properly balanced. Much as it seems the magic of our world _should_ be a closed system, it is observably not. No one knows why, or if it even matters.'

Okay. That was very strange. Charissa considered that for a second, frowning to herself, before deciding to just shrug it off. Not like it made any real difference, far as she could tell. And not like she could confirm it for herself either way — with how much magic there was in the world, the addition supposedly made by each spell she cast was so miniscule as to be unnoticeable by comparison. 'So, we don't contain magic, we channel it, is your point.'

'Yes,' Mum said with a slight nod. 'Well, we _do_ contain magic, just no more than muggles do. And, much as holding too much magic would be extremely harmful, a person's body can only handle channelling so much at any one time without suffering damage. Over time, it is possible to increase the amount you can channel — your body develops a degree of resistance to your own magic, which will gradually increase the concentration necessary to cause any damage. In fact, the curricula at most magical schools is intentionally designed to slowly increase the students' resistance to prepare them for more demanding magic without them really realising what's happening.

'Force more magic than your body can handle by a small degree, and you'll notice no more than a little bit of tingling, maybe a bit of numbness or dizziness. Go _much_ too far and you'll start giving yourself burns on your internal tissues, which is _highly_ unpleasant.' By the low tone of her voice, Charissa instantly knew Mum was speaking from experience. 'It can even kill you if you do too much damage to yourself. But, somewhere in the middle, something sort of weird can happen.

'At its very essence, magic is a power of life and creation more than anything. Even the nastiest of destructive magics, the effects are truly only a consequence of the shape it's been contorted into, the base energy it's made of is no different.' Mum paused to take another sip, then shrugged. 'Flood your body and mind with too much of it, and you'll find yourself rather intoxicated and, ah, _preoccupied_. Magic being a power of life and creation, exactly what you're likely to be preoccupied by I feel is self-evident.

'After doing a quick medical scan to make sure you hadn't hurt yourself, I could have stunned you and waited for it to pass, but I've learned things go smoother if you just work it off, so to speak.'

Well. Okay. That was a weird thing for magic to do, she thought, but she guessed she wasn't the expert here. Come to think of it, 'You've learned? From experience, I'm guessing?'

Eyes drifting across the bookshelves, Mum shifted in her chair, so slightly Charissa wasn't entirely sure she hadn't imagined it. 'My fair share, yes. The first time it happened, I was right around your age, actually.'

'Really? Doing what?'

Mum winced — Charissa got the instant impression she was regretting saying that. 'Ah, trying to teach myself runic casting, actually.'

Right. Charissa knew Mum had taught herself that in third and fourth years which, considering runic casting was legally classified as dark magic, had even technically been against the law. These days Mum was properly licensed and everything, so she could even teach it to other people, though under certain restrictions. Mum had said she'd start teaching Charissa next summer, but to not attempt it herself until then, because it wasn't something she should do...alone. Wait a second. 'You said that was something I shouldn't practise alone until I got good enough at it, and you said even you studied it with Severus.'

At Mum's reaction, Charissa smirked to herself. On the face of it, she probably wouldn't have found this so funny. But with how obviously uncomfortable Mum was all of a sudden — now visibly shifting in place, her cheeks even pinking a little — Charissa couldn't help herself. When Mum's eyes dragged back to her, she frowned a little. 'Oh, don't you go be laughing at me, young lady.'

Smirk still on stuck her face, Charissa said, 'Was I laughing? I didn't realise.'

The abrupt switch from an annoyed glare to a wide, cheery grin made Charissa instantly wary before Mum even got out a syllable. 'So, when is that date with Hermione, again? I need to know so I can steal your father's cloak and have my camera ready ahead of time. You're always so adorable when you let her walk all over you.'

Charissa scowled at her, crossing her arms over her chest. 'Yes, yes, have your fun.'

'I always do.'

* * *

 _August 3rd, 1994_

* * *

It was really starting to annoy Hermione how nervous she was getting.

On the one hand, it was really sort of silly. She'd been friends with Charissa for, what, almost three years now? She couldn't count the number times Charissa had been over to her place or vice versa during breaks. Well, she probably could if she took a moment to think about it, but it didn't really matter exactly how many times, so that would be a waste of effort. Outside of her parents — and even excluding the hours they were sleeping, which was cheating — she was mostly sure there wasn't anyone in her life she'd spent more cumulative time with. It just... She rather thought she would have been done getting nervous over Charissa by now.

But, apparently, she hadn't. It was bad enough she'd hardly been able to sleep last night, and the last hour or so she could barely even sit still. She'd been casting spell after spell in the library just to pass the time. With an occasional quick break so she could wipe her palm off on her skirt, stupid thing.

Okay, she could guess she sort of had reason to be a bit nervous. Maybe. This was definitely something she'd never done before. When she'd told Charissa they should go on a sort of practice date thing, she guessed — a conversation they'd had a while ago, but she'd delayed the event itself until after Charissa's fourteenth birthday for reasons she couldn't even explain to herself — Charissa had left the decision about what they would actually _do_ to herself, and she'd had absolutely no idea. Mum had recommended they just ride a bus down to the city, get lunch, stroll around a bit; she'd suggested Mesopotamia Walk specifically for that last part.

Mum had absolutely forbidden her from taking Charissa to Blackwell's. She could could kind of see why, but she thought Mum had said that a bit more forcefully, and more times, than absolutely necessary.

So. The point was that they'd just sort of be...talking a lot. And, well, they already did talk a lot. Constantly, a little, maybe — Morag had actually started putting up a silencing around her bed just so she could get to sleep at a reasonable time. But, she wasn't really sure if Charissa would expect them to be talking about...different...things? She wouldn't even really know what, honestly. She just... This just wasn't a thing she knew how to do. She wasn't even sure if she _should_ act differently from any other day or not. Just had no idea what she was doing at all.

Of course, she was also slightly terrified Charissa would be wanting to, erm. _Not_ talk. Absolutely no clue what she would do if _that_ came up. Honestly, the thought of, er — wow, it was awkward even thinking this in the privacy of her own head — of, just, kissing Charissa or whatever it was people would normally do specifically she didn't know and it didn't really matter the particulars so much for the purpose of whatever she was thinking in her head alone right now it didn't make much of a difference, was still just...a little... _odd_. But, of course, she also knew that, if this ended up being a thing they did more than once, that would _definitely_ come up eventually, and...well, she'd still agreed, so.

She was being so ridiculous today. She'd even taken longer to figure out what the hell she was going to _wear_ than she'd ever taken _ever_ , which, ergh, she didn't think she'd ever felt more of an idiot her entire life. By this point, she was mostly hoping Charissa would show up early, just to put her out of her misery.

So, even though her heart was pounding in her throat, even though she was all weird and twitchy, even though she felt like such a _stupid silly girl_ , it was still an enormous relief when she saw the familiar flash of green light.

Her wand vanishing into the holster at her wrist — birthday present from Lady P– _Lily_ last year, and if that hadn't been a surprise, for more than one reason — she walked over into the living room, immediately spotting Charissa, standing just off the hearth. And Hermione immediately started cursing in her head. Charissa had dressed girly again. Well, maybe _girly_ wasn't exactly the right word. Sort of a...a waistcoat-type thing, maybe — she had no idea what the proper term was, and it was obviously magically-made, she identified the shimmery material as acromantula silk almost instantly — the thing deep green and low-necked, little swirly patterns stitched in a slightly darker colour. Below, a solid black skirt that seemed thin to her eyes, perhaps even delicate, and then those black and silver leather boots she wore almost constantly. Which seemed sort of out of place considering the rest, but she'd learned by now the standard magical British fashion sense was rather different than what she'd grown up with; with people like Luna and her father around, Charissa was almost normal by comparison, really.

Not that Hermione had a problem with Charissa dressing girly or anything. It still struck Hermione as slightly strange, since she didn't do it often, but it wasn't a _problem_ , exactly. That really wasn't what had her cursing in her head. Actually, she'd rather think Charissa might be a bit, erm, underdressed. To be out in public, she meant. Her arms were completely bare, the neck of her top dipping low enough to show further below her clavicles than Hermione would ever be comfortable doing herself. Those damn silly boots reached practically to her knees, about as high as Hermione's own skirt was low, but Charissa's skirt was short enough, though, that Hermione thought, between the top of her boots and the hem of her skirt, she could see maybe halfway up Charissa's thighs. The whole thing was just...it was rather—

Cold. She thought Charissa would probably be cold. It wasn't like it was a hot day or anything, it was only eighteen degrees out or so. She could imagine it wouldn't be very comfortable.

Yes. Cold.

* * *

'Ergh.' Charissa came to a stop almost immediately after getting off the bus, steadying herself with a hand on a signpost at the side of the street. She took a long breath, her knees visibly shaking a little. 'That was unpleasant.'

It was probably a sign that she was a completely terrible person, but Hermione couldn't help smiling a bit. She still found it amusing how severely uncomfortable Charissa was with non-magical transportation — especially funny, considering just how awful most magical equivalents were. Was that a bit sadistic of her? She thought it might be, but she couldn't help it.

'What are you smiling at?'

Hermione started, tried not to look too guilty. After a quick glance around to make sure the other people on the somewhat busy street were far enough away they wouldn't be overheard too easily, she muttered, 'I'm sorry, I just still think it's funny. With how awful portkeys and apparation and floo travel are, you're still all shaken up with just a little trip on a bus.'

Charissa shot her a glare at that, but Hermione's smile didn't lessen at all — she'd seen Charissa give other people _actual_ glares, she knew this one was mostly just playing. 'Yes, well. I can't think of anyone I've known off the top of my head who died from a portkey, or apparation, or in the floo. I can't exactly say the same of these awful muggle things.'

Oh. That _was_ sort of a good point — while apparation did carry a risk of splinching, a badly-cast portkey could be very dangerous, and floo grates needed occasional maintenance, lethal transportation accidents in the magical world were exceedingly rare. But, wait, did Charissa just say _she_ knew someone who'd died in a traffic accident? 'Who?' Erm, that wasn't a bad thing to ask, was it?

Apparently not, since Charissa just shrugged. 'Both my grandparents — Mum's parents, obviously. I think I was seven or eight.'

And she now felt retroactively awful for finding this funny, both this time and back at Christmas. Probably the _only_ exposure Charissa had ever had to vehicles like these before this year, simply passing them on the street excluded, was being told her grandparents had died — of _course_ she'd be uncomfortable with them! _God_ , she was such an _idiot_! It hadn't even occurred to her there might be a _reason_ for Charissa's seemingly irrational degree of fear. Considering how calm and composed Charissa was otherwise, it really, _really_ should have. How could she be so _stu_ —

'No need to go beating yourself up on my account, Hermione.' Charissa was standing upright again, giving her a half-amused, half-exasperated look. 'I'm not annoyed. I barely even remember them at all, honestly — Mum had been rather estranged from her family back then. So.' Charissa glanced around them, eyes trailing along buildings, the street, cars parked and moving, the couple dozen people visible spread across the pavement. 'Where are we going?'

Without a word, but instead with a slight, awkward smile, Hermione turned, and started leading the way down the street. She'd told Charissa to show up at a time appropriate for lunch — or, adjusted for the time it would take the bus to get down here, anyway — and just nearby there was a sandwich...shop...cafe...thing, that she'd been to a couple times, and was a sort of okay place. That, and she knew such places were practically unheard of on the magical side of Britain, she'd sort of picked it intentionally for that reason. Considering Lily had non-magical parents, she knew Charissa was strangely ignorant when it came to non-magical society. Seemed the thing to do.

Speaking of strange, as they walked silently down the pavement — Hermione had absolutely no idea what to talk about, she was rather hoping Charissa would say something — she couldn't help but notice the looks Charissa was giving, well, everything. Her eyes constantly darting around from object to object, person to person, a distinct feeling of wariness about her. Again, it struck her that the England she'd grown up in was a foreign country to Charissa; most of the time she sort of completely forgot that. They both called themselves British, of course, but what they each meant by that word was totally different. If she were to try to put words to it, she would say her "British" was a mostly Germanic culture with occasional Celtic influence (both natively and indirectly via France), a bit of Roman thought infused via the Classics, Near Eastern philosophy and morality due to overwhelming Christianisation. Charissa's "British", on the other hand, was mostly Celtic, with a heavy dose of old Roman law, bits and pieces of tradition from other ancient European cultures, the Germanic English language only adopted after centuries of contact, and even then grudgingly. Gaelic and Welsh were still widely-spoken by magicals, actually. It was never more obvious how different the two were looking at the legal structure of magical Britain — they'd essentially just reinforced their traditional Celtic clan-based society with the more explicit rules surrounding _gent_ ē _s_ back during the Roman Republic, the philosophies of self-determinism and individual rights that had developed and spread during the Renaissance and Enlightenment never really penetrating.

Which was also why the morality British magicals termed "traditional" seemed so odd to her: they had preserved a European code of ethics from before the arrival of Christianity that for her was entirely foreign, raised as she had been surrounded by a natively Near Eastern set of traditions. Some of the things that bothered magicals, and some of the things that _didn't_ , still struck her as very peculiar.

Not to say Charissa was the only person giving out weird looks. Some of the passing people she stared at just stared right back. Charissa wasn't exactly dressed normally by their standards — not absurd enough to seem _entirely_ out of place like many magicals did, but not appropriate enough to slip completely under the radar. Honestly, most probably just assumed she was a bit of a tart, or at least rather coquettish, even if she was somewhat younger than most would think entirely decent.

Actually, come to think of it, sexual ethics were one of those areas where magicals were _completely_ different, so she guessed that impression likely wouldn't even be entirely inaccurate. And if _that_ wasn't an uncomfortable thing to think about...

'Oh, by the way—' Hermione tried not to jump at the sudden sound of Charissa's voice, coming from just at her shoulder. She was being so ridiculous today. '—I was talking to my father earlier, and it seems like the Tournament this year is going to be even more involved than I first thought it would be.'

Ah, yes, Hermione remembered this. The Triwizard Tournament was being revived this year, Charissa had mentioned that a couple times. It seemed like a lot of fuss for something the vast majority of the students in all the schools involved wouldn't have any involvement in, but she wasn't the one running things. 'More involved how?'

'Well, for one thing, the ICW have decided to make it a huge international event.' Charissa shrugged a little. 'Bigger than it was before, I mean. They're even going to add a Slavic and Hellenic school to the main Tournament to complete the set.'

Hermione was confused for a moment before nodding to herself. The ICW was usually considered a union of five macrocultures: Hellenic, Italic, Germanic, Slavic, and Celtic. There were a couple other groups, but they were usually neighboring nations who only had observer status anyway. With Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang representing the Celtic, Italic, and Germanic peoples respectively, adding a Slavic and Hellenic school would cover everyone. She thought for another second, then asked, 'The _Akaðimía Attikí_ , and...what's the big school just outside Kraków called again?'

With a shrug, Charissa said, ' _Instytut Krakowie_.' Well, okay, that was obvious. 'And they're adding a whole bunch of minor competitions and events and things. They're apparently already planning a week-long festival for the summer solstice too. It's been a while since the ICW had a major gathering like this, so I guess they decided to hold nothing back. It should be interesting.'

Hermione immediately had the rather unflattering thought that she couldn't imagine magical people having a _festival_ — with how reserved and even-tempered they always seemed, with a few exceptions (Lovegood), the word just didn't quite feel right. But then, she was aware her exposure to their culture was still somewhat limited. She hadn't participated in a single native holiday, or been to even one magical celebration. And, well, she'd gotten the impression from her reading and a few scathing comments from Lily that, compared to the other nations of the ICW, Britain was rather...repressed? That almost didn't seem an appropriate term at all, considering how shockingly libertine they could be, but it was the first one that came to mind. Honestly, if the rest of the ICW combined the flexible personal morality ubiquitous here with the individual freedoms of modern Western society, as Lily had implied they did, Hermione could not _possibly imagine_ how utterly insane things were on the Continent.

In retrospect, she probably shouldn't have been quite so surprised when she'd found out just how many different forms of contraception mages had come up with over the millennia.

But anyway, conversation. 'What sort of _competitions and events and things_?'

'I don't know, exactly.' Huh, Charissa almost even sounded sheepish at that. 'I was mostly only paying attention to the duelling tournament. Figured I'd see if I could put a team together.'

Yes, Hermione had figured she would be doing that. It was still baffling to her just how much effort Charissa put into learning all this duelling stuff. She hadn't seen much point to it, at first, but now she knew Charissa was planning to duel competitively after Hogwarts for a while, which was apparently a thing people did, so she guessed there was some sense in it. 'Who were you thinking of recruiting?'

'Well, teams for tournaments like this are usually seven people.' Hermione had actually known that, but didn't think it was worth stopping Charissa to point it out. 'So, me and Neville, definitely, and probably Susan, too. Maybe Tracey, and the twins... I'd have to think about the last one. Sorcha, maybe, but I don't know.'

Hermione barely managed to keep the grimace of distaste off her face — she really did not like the Gaunt twins, couldn't imagine how Charissa could even tolerate them. It took her a moment to remember "Tracey" was Davis, a Slytherin in their year. Hermione did her best to avoid the Slytherins, she hardly knew any. The Gaunts she'd only learned to recognise because they were always hissing at them, Black because she followed Charissa around half the time. Quite creepy, really. 'I hope you're not thinking of asking me.'

A slight smile pulling at her lips, Charissa said, 'Hadn't even occurred to me. I know duelling isn't your thing. Not that I mind — I'm perfectly willing to do your fighting for you.'

Hermione had absolutely no idea how to respond to that. So she just looked forward, went back to silently leading the way.

She could almost feel Charissa smirking at her.

* * *

It took her a moment to realise Charissa had stopped walking, standing in the middle of the footpath a couple metres behind her.

Hermione had to admit she had always liked this place. A thin strip of an island, trees and bushes and grasses flanked on both sides by the Cherwell, the occasional weir setting the air to burbling. Relatively isolated within the city, the additional barrier of the trees surrounding the river gave the area a serenity that couldn't easily be found anywhere else around here. That was one thing she'd liked about Hogwarts from the beginning, actually: if she wanted a moment of solitude, she only had to go a stretch down the lake and she was already practically in wilderness, everything soft and calm. It wasn't quite as nice here, of course — people did come down the path every once in a while, noise from the bordering universities occasionally audible over the rustling of the trees — but it was close to the best that could be found in the area.

Charissa was standing just barely on this side of the little footbridge they'd just crossed, looking at a smallish patch of open grass to their right, just on the edge of the river. After a moment, she nodded to herself, stepped off the path and onto the grass. 'You see anyone?'

Almost despite herself, she took a quick glance around; they were alone. 'No. Why?'

With a flick of her wrist, Charissa's wand was suddenly in her hand. Must have drawn it out of a holster charmed invisible or something, because there was just no room anywhere in Charissa's clothes for that to have come from. But what was she doing? It wasn't like she could actually do magic here, they— With a smooth, circular wave of Charissa's wand, a muttered word she didn't catch, Hermione instantly felt a paling snap into place. Felt like an avoidance spell, she thought, compelling non-magicals to ignore the little patch of grass.

'Charissa!' she hissed. 'What are you doing?' Hermione glanced around, half-expecting to see officials from the DLE popping into existence to interrogate them about exactly what two underage witches thought they were doing casting magic in public.

And Charissa just shrugged at her. Shrugged! 'Had to make sure some muggle couldn't come by and see what I'm doing.' A twitch of her wrist, and another flash of magic slashed away from her, toward an adjacent collection of low-hanging trees. With a sharp crack, one of the branches came crashing to the ground.

Okay, this was completely insane. What the hell was Charissa _thinking_? 'You realise you're _breaking the law_ right now, don't you?'

'Only technically.' The branch Charissa had chopped off was drifting through the air, a moment later dropping to the ground in the middle of the patch of grass. 'But, remember how the Ministry detects magic use. All they know is magic is being used in this location. They have no particular reason to think the person doing it is underage nor, since I put up a muggle-targeting avoidance charm first, any reason to think the Statute is at risk. As long as I don't do anything _too_ flashy, they won't bother giving this a second glance. No one will know.' Charissa turned away from the branch, which had doubled in size a moment ago from another silent charm so it was roughly as long as she was tall, to raise an eyebrow in Hermione's direction. 'At least, not unless you plan on telling them.'

Hermione had to roll her eyes at that. Yes, like she was going to go and send the Improper Use of Magic Office after Charissa. She had problems with them enough already — she _still_ wasn't done being annoyed at the Ministry for the institutional double standard in place when it came to underage magic. That didn't mean this wasn't potentially a _very_ stupid idea. If something went even slightly wrong, Charissa could quite easily see herself being in serious trouble.

Actually, come to think of it, Charissa being the heir of a Noble House and all, she honestly doubted one infraction would be enough to incur any significant repercussions anyway. She still didn't like it.

She brushed off her annoyance as well as she could, though; if Charissa didn't care, she really doubted she could convince her to. So instead she just watched, trying to figure out just what Charissa was up to. Her lips were twitching with words Hermione couldn't hear over the rustling of the leaves around them, wand jabbing and swishing at the branch. By how it gradually bubbled and twisted, Hermione assumed she was doing some sort of transfiguration, but she couldn't tell exactly what.

It was a minute or two later, Charissa nearing the end of her work, when the thing was finally recognisable enough for Hermione to tell what it was: a low, short-backed bench, formed of crisscrossing strands of wood and bark. Hermione couldn't help feeling slightly impressed. Her marks were better than Charissa's in Transfiguration, the only practical subject she still consistently had an edge over her in — Transfiguration was Charissa's weakest class that actually involved casting magic. So, Hermione was sure she _could_ have done that; she just doubted she would have thought of it.

Stepping into the grass even as Charissa flopped onto her completed bench, Hermione shook her head to herself, smiling a little. 'If you were getting tired you could have said so.'

Charissa raised an eyebrow at her as she approached. 'It's not me who's the one getting tired.'

Oh. Well. Okay, she maybe had a little bit. They'd been walking around a while now. She just hadn't wanted to say anything about it. Should have been obvious, though, that Charissa wouldn't be stopping for herself — Hermione had to admit she was far less physically active, so she'd expect herself to be the one to tire first. But she gave no sign at all, kept her face empty. When she moved to sit on the transfigured bench, a short distance down from Charissa, she hesitated as her legs protested a little. She'd been trying not to pay attention to that, but they _really_ weren't happy with her right now. After a second to shove down the burning and twitching in her thighs and calves, suppress the shaking in her knees, she plopped down to sitting, smoothly crossed her legs, doing her best to let out absolutely no indication of the difficulty she'd just had.

But Charissa was still grinning at her. 'See what I mean?'

Hermione just let out a short huff.

And they went back to talking, the subject one that would be a shock to absolutely no one who knew them: magic theory. Specifically, memetic magic. In Runes this year, they'd be continuing a little bit with the Nordic script they'd spent all of last year on but, since they should have a good enough grasp on the grammar and such by now to simply look up vocabulary they'd need when they needed it, they'd also be starting in on learning old Belẽs runes. Apparently, Belẽs was taught after the Nordic because they were in ways rather similar — both were mostly logographic scripts with a few little phonemic additions as grammatically appropriate, though Belẽs used a syllabary for those extra bits rather than an alphabet — and made a good stepping stone into the Sumero–Akkadian and Egyptian they'd work with in NEWT years.

Belẽs was of particular interest to Hermione, if only because non-magical scholars considered the syllabary an undeciphered script they called Linear A. Apparently, there were even still direct cultural descendants of what Hermione knew growing up as the Minoan Civilisation around on the magical side of things, even today one of the more influential magical cultures in the eastern Mediterranean. They even still called themselves Belak though, presumably, they pronounced the word differently than their ancestors. Of course, over the millennia they'd changed a fair amount, so they weren't exactly the same people — there'd even been a period of exile from their homeland for a while, the culture surviving in diaspora communities. For example, the modern language they spoke _was_ a descendant of that used at the time, but the script they wrote it in now was long ago adapted from Egyptian hieratic. And, like many magical cultures, they've since abandoned their native religion entirely. But it was still interesting.

Or, at least, Hermione found it interesting.

Not that she thought she was particularly enthusiastic about memetic magic, or at least not as much as Charissa was. The education in long-vanished cultures and languages that went hand-in-hand with the Hogwarts Ancient Runes class, yes, that part was fascinating. But she just thought there was something rather...soft? She didn't know. In rune-based spells, laying a ward or an enchantment or whatever, the effect of the spell was only _partially_ determined by what the selected runes actually meant. A portion of the effect was taken from the _intent_ of the person carving the runes and activating them. The overall effect of a runic-based spell couldn't entirely contradict the meaning of the runes used, but it could be _bent_ to greater or lesser degrees, depending on the creativity of whoever cast it. They'd been told that, for this reason, simply reading the script used in a ward or enchantment wasn't _necessarily_ enough to determine the effect of the magic, so it was wise to use detection and analysis charms to confirm their assumptions. The whole thing was rather murkier than Hermione was entirely comfortable with.

Well, they'd actually be creating basic enchantments this year, though probably not until spring. She'd get to find out for herself soon, she guessed.

While Hermione was in the middle of wondering out loud why they didn't study Melīx runes at all — or maybe Chinese or Mayan, they had interesting runecraft — Charissa pulled out her wand again. With a little twirl, a handful of pebbles shot out of the water of the river, came to a rest in the grass at their feet. Hermione trailed off in mid-sentence, staring down at the ground. Okay? What was Charissa up to now?

She soon found out when, a few moments later, the pebbles had been transfigured into nine tiny, colourful songbirds. Charissa's animation charm hit a moment later, and they exploded into motion, hopping along the grass, others taking up into the air, one green and yellow one fluttering up to perch on Charissa's knee, the air suddenly filled with chittering and whistling. She glanced up to see Charissa had a soft little smile on her face, watching the one on her knee play at the feathers of one wing a little.

Hermione couldn't help grinning a little at that. So silly.

After a few seconds, Charissa must have noticed she was staring at her, because she looked up, giving her a look straight back. 'What?'

'Oh, nothing.'

'Mm-hmm.' The doubtful tone was very clear.

'I just didn't realise I was on a date with a character from a Disney cartoon, is all.' Despite herself, Hermione blinked at her own flatly-delivered comment. Had she really just said that? She'd been spending far too much time around Charissa's Slytherin cousins...

If Charissa thought that had been out of character at all, she didn't comment. She just raised an eyebrow, giving Hermione a look of faint confusion. The effect was entirely ruined when one of the transfigured birds suddenly landed on top of Charissa's head, it took all the self-control Hermione had not to burst into giggles. 'Disney?'

'Wait a second.' Hermione needed a moment to figure out how to put this weirdness into words. 'How many of the _Star Trek_ films has your mother made you watch again?'

Charissa shrugged. 'All of them. I think.'

'And...you don't even know what Disney is.'

'No. Should I?'

Wow. Okay, then. 'Your mother is rather odd, you know.'

'Believe it or not, I had noticed that.'

Hermione just sighed; she wasn't really sure what else to say to this. It still struck her as sort of strange just how little Charissa knew about non-magical culture in general, especially considering exactly who her mother was. She'd known Lily was a bit of a science fiction nut — Lily had once told her she used to be more into fantasy, but then she'd started living in one, so she'd switched — but she would have thought Lily would have shown Charissa at least _some_ other non-magical media. With how rarely Lily had nice things to say about the magical side of things... She didn't know, she just always expected Charissa to be more informed than she was. Not knowing what Disney was, sure, was a rather innocuous, inconsequential thing; it was more the overall pattern it hinted at.

But, sure, if they were playing with magic now, she could do that. She slipped her own wand out of her sleeve, gave a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching — which, considering the paling Charissa had put up, wasn't exactly necessary. Her own summoning charm pulled a rock from the river, dropped it at her feet. She frowned at the rock for a moment, thinking. Transfiguration could take a significant power draw, proportional to the size of the object, and this rock was rather smaller than what she was planning to make. But casting charms on transfigured objects could always be a bit tricky. Hmm. Oh, well. She shot a couple engorgement charms at the rock, which was technically transfiguration magic anyway, bringing it up to nearer the proper size.

Transfiguration was rather easy, when she put her mind to it. She closed her eyes, thinking of the form she wanted to create, every detail she could come up with inside and out as precise as she could. Then she pointed her wand at the rock, pushing power up through her arm, forcing herself to believe the rock already was the form in her head, had never been anything else. Seemed a silly bit of self-delusion, she knew, but she'd grown used to temporarily going crazy for the purpose of producing the desired effect.

It'd worked perfectly: sitting in the grass was a little house cat with a silky, shaggy black coat. Perfect. A quick casting of the cat-specific animation charm they'd been taught in their inanimate-to-animate unit last year, and the little magical construct sprung to life.

And immediately started chasing after Charissa's little transfigured birds. 'Hey!' Charissa said from her side, sounding amused despite herself. 'That's not very nice.'

Hermione smirked to herself a little, watching her transfigured cat crouch, staring at one of the birds hopping against the ground with steady eyes, rear twitching in preparation a few times, before suddenly bounding across the grass. Nearly caught it too, the bird fluttering into the air with a storm of angry twittering, tail feathers inches from the cat's claws. 'Couldn't let you have all the fun.'

'Oh, yes, because your beast assaulting my cute little birdies is _fun_.' _Cute little birdies_? Well, at least Hermione wasn't the only one saying weird things. With a casual twist of her wrist, Charissa silently shot off a charm at her cat. She missed, the dirt and grass a few inches behind the furball flung into the air with a soft _puff_ — bludgeoning hex, then. With how good Charissa was with hexes and such, Hermione could only assume she'd missed on purpose.

'Sure, I'm the mean one.' Hermione willed the little black cat to come to her. Since the animation charm giving the thing a facsimile of life was continually drawing power from her, the cat did what she wanted, slinking over toward her feet. Wand slipped back into her sleeve, Hermione picked the thing up, the fur soft and smooth against her hands, and hugged it to her chest. 'It's okay, sweetie,' she cooed, entirely because she knew it would annoy Charissa — or amuse her, but she'd take either, honestly. 'I'll protect you from the big, bad witch.'

She glanced up to see Charissa watching her, lips drawn taught with a restrained smile. Finally, with a tinge of teasing laughter on her voice, Charissa said, 'You know, you didn't need to transfigure a stand-in. If you'd wanted to hold me, you could have just asked.'

Hermione blinked at her. This all suddenly seemed a lot less silly than it had a second ago. 'Er... What?' Charissa didn't answer directly, just glanced down at the cat then back up at Hermione, pointed at her own eyes. Frowning to herself, Hermione turned the cat around in her arms to look closer at its face. Oh. Those did look rather a lot like Charissa's, didn't they? She'd even made the pupils far too rounded for a feline. Come to think of it, the fur looked rather like Charissa's hair as well — though much shorter, of course. After a moment of staring, she shrugged. 'I didn't even mean to do that.'

'Mm-hmm.'

Okay, that mocking tone on Charissa's voice was really quite annoying. Trying to keep her voice above a grumble, she said, 'You really can be a pain, you know.'

'Yeah, that one I'd also noticed. I decided a while ago that things will go much easier if I don't try to fight my inherently annoying nature. Besides, even if I thought I could stop myself entirely, I don't think I would.' Hermione had turned away a few seconds ago, watching the birds flutter around, but she didn't need to look to know exactly what expression was on Charissa's face now. She was using her smirking voice, it was obvious. 'You're adorable when you're being all shy.'

The only thing Hermione could think to do in response to that was let out a slight huff, shift in her seat a little. Which, by the low chuckle she heard from Charissa, really wasn't helping.

She idly wondered if there'd be any point to hiding her face in the cat's fur. Hmm, probably not.

A few minutes later, she'd let the cat go again, chasing after Charissa's birds some more. Hermione still hadn't managed to say anything, and Charissa had apparently decided to let the silence sit. Which was just...incredibly awkward. With just a couple sentences, Charissa had somehow managed to make her very uncomfortable. Not really sure how she'd managed that, because for much of the afternoon Hermione had actually been mostly okay. She'd had a few sheepish moments here and there, sure, but she'd managed to stay mostly in command of herself. Which she'd almost been a little proud of herself for, considering how much she'd been freaking out about this whole thing for...well, months, honestly. But now Charissa had said awkward things, and Hermione had reacted to the awkward things all awkwardly, and she didn't know how to stop the awkwardness from being so awkward. Ergh. They should probably start heading off soon anyway, if they were going to catch a bus at a reasonable time, but just saying they should leave would be even _more_ awkward. Awful.

And Charissa just had to make it even worse, goddammit. With a sudden, smooth shuffling, she slid across the bench, coming to rest far closer to Hermione than she'd been before. Would be rather difficult for her to get closer, actually, with how she could feel Charissa's shoulder through her shirt. Hermione resisted the urge to pull away — she was near the end of the bench anyway, not like she had much anywhere else to pull away to. Her voice easy, Charissa said, 'You know—' She reached over, grabbed Hermione's wrist with her opposite hand. '—you're being very silly.' Charissa lifted her left arm up by the wrist. With a rather awkward ducking motion, Charissa moved her arm up over her head, then settled across her shoulders, upper back. At the same time, Charissa shifted, slipping her right shoulder slightly under Hermione's left — if Charissa weren't so much shorter than Hermione, that probably would have been really uncomfortable. Hermione jumped as she felt motion behind, Charissa's right arm slinking around her lower back. 'There's really no reason to be being so awkward about this.'

Hermione didn't really have anything to say to that. Not that she'd have been able to if she did know what to say — she'd been entirely overcome with the irresistible urge to swallow. She was suddenly swept over with tingles and warmth, and it was very much distracting. If she didn't know better, she would think—

She blinked to herself. 'Did you put a warming charm on yourself?'

The pressure against her shoulder shifted, probably Charissa turning her head to look up at her. Hermione glanced in her direction long enough to see Charissa smiling crookedly before quickly looking away — she could see rather further down Charissa's top from this angle, that was just unspeakable uncomfortable. 'Of course I did. Wouldn't want to get cold, would I?'

Hermione was of two minds about that. One was, grudgingly, rather impressed: she had no idea how long she could sustain a warming charm, but she doubted she'd be able to keep one up for the few hours they'd been out. The other she actually gave voice to. 'You could have just worn more clothes, you know.'

With a light laugh, Charissa said, 'What would be the fun in that?'

* * *

Hermione had no idea if this was some creative form of torture, or just really, really nice. Or, perhaps, both.

They hadn't said a word in...well, Hermione didn't know quite how long, really. She had no idea exactly why Charissa had been silent, but she knew for her part it was because she'd likely lost the power of speech some time ago. Long enough the animation charm on her cat had run down, the thing curled up a short distance away, still as death. It could be her imagination, but she thought it'd shrunk a bit. Charissa's birds were still at it, though, hopping and fluttering and twittering. Lucky her spells were sticking longer — it would be really uncomfortable if the transfiguration on this branch suddenly reverted while they were still sitting on it.

At some point, Charissa had turned in place a bit, her boots propped against the wood on Hermione's other side, both legs crossing over Hermione's lower thighs, bare knees pointed skyward. Her other arm had slipped over Hermione's stomach, left hand joining the right at Hermione's hip. If only in hope she'd stop moving it around, Hermione had laid her own right hand around Charissa's elbow — Charissa had rather transparently tried to get Hermione to move it to her leg instead, but that one she hadn't gone along with. Before, Hermione's other hand had been lightly trailing along Charissa's hair down her back, but she'd been making these low humming sounds along with it, and... Well, anyway, Hermione had stopped that, just let her hand hang at Charissa's side instead.

She'd had absolutely no idea how long they'd been sitting here. And, well, in some ways, she didn't really mind. She felt almost mind-numbingly soft and warm right now, it was rather nice. But in other ways...she didn't really know what it was. Distracting? Sure, distracting was a word. Every once in a while, Charissa would shift in place a bit, head moving against her shoulder, arms slipping along her stomach and back, fingers tightening and loosening on her hip. It was very...distracting. It didn't help that Hermione had managed to lock Charissa's left arm mostly in place, but her right hand wasn't staying perfectly still. Occasionally, her fingers would move to trace along Hermione's lower back before going slack again. It was just...

It _also_ didn't help that, well. After a few glances, she'd figured out Charissa's eyes were staying mostly closed. If she didn't know better, she might even think Charissa had fallen asleep. So, she'd sort of taken that as invitation to... Okay, she wasn't proud of it. But with how Charissa was sitting, Hermione did have a rather intriguing angle on her top. And, after she'd moved her legs over Hermione's, her skirt as well. She didn't even really mean to! Her eyes just seemed to have a perverted mind of their own, she was entirely helpless to stop them. That she was putting rather less effort into actually stopping than she'd claim if confronted about it was _entirely_ not the point. She could actually make out part of another specimen of those weird magical-manufactured knickers Charissa always wore if she tilted her head slightly to the side, so she was consciously _not_ doing that, because that was just _especially..._ She was trying not to feel too sleazy about what her eyes kept doing. Besides, after what she'd said about the warming charm earlier Hermione was rather certain this was exactly why Charissa had dressed like this anyway, so, well. She kind of doubted Charissa would mind.

From the crooked smile she'd noticed growing on Charissa's face, Hermione was half-certain she'd caught her staring at some point. That she hadn't said anything about it probably just meant she was right.

But...she had absolutely no idea what to do with any of this. Was she supposed to be doing something? She sort of felt like she should be. There was a vague feeling about the air of motion restrained, like something _should_ be happening that _wasn't_ , and she had no idea what was going on, she had no idea what she was doing, and she was just... She was just so completely clueless right now, and she _hated_ feeling clueless.

And her chest and throat were really starting to hurt. They'd been doing that off and on.

After what felt like hours — and, judging by the slight tinge in the sky starting up to the west, very well could be — Charissa moved, twisting in place a little. After a bit of awkward straining, she pulled her left arm out of Hermione's grip, the tip of her new willow wand held between her fingers. With an adroit little flick of her wrist, her wand made a quick half-flip, and she caught it by the base. Not really surprised she could pull that off: Charissa had taken to idly flipping her wand around and catching it while reading. A little wave, magical light blossoming into the air, a charm Hermione recognised instantly. Charissa let it fade, let out a heavy sigh. 'I have to go. Perry told me to be home for dinner.'

Hermione frowned at that. 'Perry told you?' A deadline like that given by her parents would make sense, but her brother?

'He doesn't like being around Mum and Dad at the same time. He's a sensitive kid, you know. He says it's easier if I'm around.' In a lower mutter, Charissa added, 'Almost making me feel bad about going back to school in a couple weeks, actually.'

'...Ah.'

What else was there to say about that, really?

Letting out another long sigh, Charissa swung her legs off Hermione, pulled her arms back, and got up to her feet. Hermione would never admit out loud how much she didn't like that, it was rather embarrassing. How she was just now realising how chilly it'd been getting out only made it worse. She tottered up to her own feet as Charissa gave two waves of her wand, the first dispelling the charms and transfigurations, returning birds and cat to stone, the second sending them all plunking back into the river. With the bench, Charissa actually hesitated on the first wave for a couple seconds, but a moment later the branch was banished back to the foot of the tree she'd cut it from.

Hermione wasn't sure if she should be jealous or impressed Charissa had managed to do that silently — though it wasn't something Hogwarts started teaching until sixth year, she knew Charissa's mother and Professor Lupin had been urging her to do as much as she could from practically the beginning. Hermione herself could probably have done the dispels on the rocks, but the more complicated one need for the branch, the movement charms? Doubtful.

While Hermione was thinking about that, Charissa had slipped up to stand right next to her. After a moment filled with a long breath, Charissa's wand started moving again. Hermione recognised the circular swish, the little dipping draw: _grātiā āreolae luēns_ , the more powerful area-effect dispel she knew. And now she was definitely jealous. Not only was it a difficult charm Charissa was performing silently, but it _also_ meant the paling she'd put in place hours ago was a better one than Hermione could have cast, especially considering how long it'd been hanging around. With a final slash of Charissa's wand, Hermione felt the paling shatter, and then she jumped as Charissa suddenly grabbed her around the waist and—

In an instant, everything went black. The world compressed, pushing in at her from all sides, the pressure unyielding, tight enough her gasp of surprise was locked in her throat, the pressure against her eyes turning her vision to multicoloured spots. There was an indistinct sensation of motion, bands of darkness rolling against her skin, a rush of nothingness flooding her ears. She started going a little lightheaded, the panic clawing at her chest and her inability to breathe forcing her to—

And then the darkness was gone, the pressure lifted away, and Hermione drew in a long shuddery breath. She clutched unthinkingly at the form next to her, her legs too shaky to properly support her weight. After a couple seconds, her vision stopped swirling around her, and she realised she and Charissa were standing in her living room. Were they— Did she— Did they just— 'Did we just _apparate_?'

Since she was still sort of crushing Charissa maybe a little, she could easily feel the other girl shrug. 'Yeah.'

'For the love of—' She forced her arms to loosen, pulled away from Charissa to glare at her. Still had her hands on her shoulders, but her knees hadn't stopped shaking yet, so that'd just have to be good enough. 'Do I even _have_ to point out how _very illegal_ that is?'

Charissa just smirked at her a little. 'It's only illegal if they catch you.' In the next second, the smirk abruptly vanished. Probably from this glare Hermione was giving her right now. 'Mum taught me about a year ago. I don't use it much — I obviously don't have a license, and most places I go are warded against it anyway.'

'We have an anti-apparation ward!'

'Yes, you do. And we're both keyed into it.'

For long seconds, all Hermione could do was stare at her. This was just... 'How did you even learn it well enough to side-along me anyway? People don't learn this until they're seventeen, you know! Did you even practise side-alonging before just grabbing me and jumping?!' Okay, that was a bit of an hysterical tone on her voice there, pull it back, Hermione...

'It's not actually that hard. People just don't normally teach it to kids until they're of age so they can't go bouncing around the country whenever they like.' Charissa just shrugged again — _shrugged!_ — as though the matter were of no consequence. 'And yes, I did practise side-alonging, first with my mother, and then Perry. I wouldn't have just grabbed you and done it if I hadn't known I could. Give me _some_ credit.'

Hermione let out a long sigh, lifting both of her hands to rub at her face. She couldn't help feeling that was just _insanely_ reckless. But, well... Lily was far more informed about magic and such than Hermione was — obviously. If Lily thought Charissa could properly learn it, and had even allowed her to practise side-alonging Perry...well, maybe it wasn't that bad. She could practically feel the tension leaving her as she just let it go. Or, mostly. 'Why did your mother teach apparation to you this early anyway?'

'Just in case. It's a really useful thing to know for emergencies, say if someone tries to attack or abduct me or something.'

Yeah, she was annoyed again. 'Oh, and this was an _emergency_ , clearly.'

Her voice still perfectly level, Charissa said, 'If I must ever in my life step onto one of those horrid bus things ever, _ever_ again it will be far too soon.'

Hermione almost had to laugh at that. So terrified of the bus she'd _illegally use magic_ to get back instead, that was sort of funny. 'Alright, fine.' With another sigh, she dropped her hands. There Charissa was watching her, barely a few inches away, her face pulled into an expression of consummate innocence. 'You're ridiculous, you know that.'

And there the smirk was again. Great. 'Yeah, but you like me anyway.'

Hermione just let out a long-suffering sigh.

'I really should go.' Before Hermione could really say anything — not that she was entirely sure what to say — Charissa had slid forward a single step. Since Hermione hadn't backed very far away after the apparation, that was enough for Charissa to be _quite_ close. In a couple quick, smooth motions, Charissa brought her hand up to where Hermione's shoulder met her neck, leaned up the couple necessary inches, pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek, just at the edges of her lips, and Hermione's breath was in her throat, hot needles prickling against her skin, and she couldn't even—

Hermione had hardly even managed to blink before Charissa disappeared in a flash of green flame.

...

Erm.

Well. No doubt about it anymore. Nope.

Mm-hmm.

...

Yeah, she was _entirely_ doomed.

* * *

 _dīdūce — Latin, imperative of "to split apart, sunder"; identical to canon reducto_

 _percute — Latin, imperative of "to strike, pierce, kill"; can't remember if it's in canon at all, but I've seen an identical charm in fanfics as "percutio"_

 _Is-ã lũgesat_ (IPA: /ɪ.sɐ̃.l̥ʊ̃.ɣʰɛ.sat̪̚/) — _Means "bow to me" in my conlang for the people of ancient magical Crete. Lily used this same spell just two chapters ago, the incantation slightly abbreviated. Lily also used the full incantation during a pensieve memory in chapter 11 of TRW._

[the magnitude...of ambient magic...slowly increasing over human history] — _For the record, Lily isn't mistaken. In this fic, that is fact._

[very old wards] — _Wards, for the most part, draw on the available ambient magic to power whatever effects they have. Thus, the less ambient magic in the area, the weaker the wards can be at maximum efficiency, and the more ambient magic the stronger. This is why in a previous chapter Charissa mentioned that, even though Lily had started on designing wards with identical effects for both the Grangers and the Palmers at roughly the same time, one was finished before the other — they had to be independently optimised for the ambient magic available in the area._

[it was only eighteen degrees or so] — _Should be obvious, but that is centigrade, roughly 65 Fahrenheit for my fellow Americans._

[The _Akaðimía Attikí_ ] — _Very old school of magic, near Athens. Hermione should have said i Attikí Akaðimía (_ _η_ _Αττική_ _Α_ _καδημία) but she doesn't speak Greek, give her a break._

 _Instytut Krakowie — Despite their difficulties in recent centuries, once upon a time the Polish were one of the more powerful European nations, their former capital of Kraków a major economic and cultural center. It's not at all unbelievable a major school of magic would be located in the area._

 _To clarify, the spoken Belẽs that will show up occasionally will be the modern language, if in a somewhat dated dialect when used for incantations. The terms Belẽs and Belak are_ _modern_ _endonyms, similar but not identical to what they called themselves long ago. The written language they'll be learning in Runes, though, is an ancient variety no longer used in the modern day._

[which was technically transfiguration magic anyway] — _The engorgement charm, while cast in a manner indistinguishable from other charms and taught in Charms class, achieves its effect through transfiguration (technically, conjuration). Transfiguration charms are rather common, to the degree that more than half of McGonagall's pre-NEWT syllabus is made up of charm-based transfigurations. Hermione even did choose the lower-cost sequence of transfigurations, though mostly by chance._

* * *

 _Just to confirm, yes, the idea of a "magical core" I've seen in most fanfics I've read is completely inapplicable to the use of magic in this fic — and, in fact, all my fics. To use a technological simile, mages are more like transformers than like batteries. In most ways, the magic system I use is a blend of what we're given in canon HP and how magic works in an original fiction world of mine, though some of it is taken from other fanfics or just straight made up. The closest I've seen to this particular idea in fanon is the internal magic of Jen Black in those lovely fics by Doctor Silently Watches. Not an idea I actually took from there, since that original fiction world I mentioned uses a similar concept I started writing with years ago, but similar. (Runic casting, on the other hand, was blatantly stol–_ _ **inspired**_ _by the same fics.)_

 _While Lily didn't mention it, people do still get "magical exhaustion", but it's due to a sort of fatigue from channelling too much magic for too long, not from simply running out of it, if you follow. A mage_ _ **can't**_ _run out of magic, the same way you don't run out of muscles when you get tired. The difference is minor practically, but significant from a theoretical worldbuilding perspective._

 _On Charissa learning to apparate at age 12/13, I_ _ **refuse**_ _to believe that isn't a skill Noble Houses teach their children as soon as possible, whether it's legal or not. It's far too useful in emergencies._

 _Until next time,  
~Wings_


	21. Fourth Year — The Goblet of Fire

_August 27th, 1994_

* * *

Hermione was very strange about things, Charissa thought. Most of the time, she couldn't quite predict what would set her off. Not surprising, she guessed, since she had only a _very_ rough idea of what was considered proper in muggle culture and what wasn't. So she'd mostly taken with stepping lightly. She didn't want to be pushy about this, certainly not — that was one of the Rules, in fact, one Mum had very firmly told her a couple years ago now. No matter how frustrated it made her sometimes, she'd wait for Hermione to work through...whatever was going on in her head these days, she honestly wasn't sure exactly what. She hadn't even kissed Hermione yet, despite how hard it was not to — she'd _barely_ managed to stop herself that time a few weeks ago now, and it wasn't getting any easier.

There were some minor benefits, though. For one thing, Hermione had taken to sitting rather closer to her than before. They were riding up to the castle in one of the carriages right now, and the things were _supposed_ to be able to fit six, but Hermione was so flush against her she wouldn't be at all surprised if they could squeeze in a seventh. This was a mixed blessing, to be honest — when Hermione was so close to her like this her thoughts had a tendency to slide down avenues that were quite pleasant, but had to be shoved aside before she got too wrapped up in them. She didn't want to slip and do anything to make Hermione uncomfortable while she was, ah, _distracted_. Well, she actually sort of did want to make Hermione uncomfortable, but uncomfortable in a very specific way, and, nope, that wasn't something she was supposed to be thinking about, stop that.

By the thin smirk pulling at Luna's face, which she could see clearly from where the other girl was sitting in the opposite bench, she was perfectly aware of exactly what was going on in her head. Because she just _had_ to maintain a friendship with an _empath_. Cursed bloody Seers...

It wasn't all great. Hermione had also taken to grabbing her hand and just, sort of...hanging on to it. Which she found faintly annoying, but had quickly learned to pretend she was fine with. For one thing, with how cautious Hermione was being about everything, she _really_ didn't want to make things more difficult than they had to be. And, well, when she'd freed herself after just a couple seconds, Hermione had looked almost...hurt? And that'd just been uncomfortable. So she'd quickly come up with the excuse she wasn't comfortable with Hermione locking up her wand hand like that, just in case she needed it — fortunately, it _had_ actually been her wand hand Hermione had grabbed that time, too — so, if she could just avoid that one. Thanks to that memory of hers, she guessed, Hermione had hardly even touched her right hand since, and instead seemed to have claimed her left. Which was fine. The hand-holding thing still felt...weird. To her. She really didn't get it, didn't see what the point was, but. Whatever.

And it might make her vaguely uncomfortable, but at least it wasn't all the time. Case in point: the instant Jas swung the carriage door open Hermione let go, slid a couple inches away. She was still holding on to that muggle idea, that intimate relations between people of the same sex were somehow inappropriate. Hermione had even thought to warn her ahead of time that she'd probably back off in public. In front of their friends, Charissa's family and various cousins, was apparently just fine, but not the student body at large. Not that that especially bothered Charissa either. To be perfectly honest, it might even be something of a relief. If it got out she was seeing a muggleborn girl... Well, there would _definitely_ be talk among the other Noble Houses, Dad would probably get a few snide comments he'd then complain to her about, it might even end up in those mindlessly banal society pages, because, _ð'Vurgen_ , they never had _anything_ interesting to talk about, did they? No, not really anything she wanted to deal with right now. So Hermione's shyness was just fine with her.

At least, for the moment, anyway.

A few minutes later, they were walking into the almost tactile noise of the Great Hall, and Charissa plopped down to a seat with the other Ravenclaws, Hermione immediately slipping in next to her — to her left, she noted with a slight smirk. She absently glanced up to the staff table, then froze, frowning in confusion. 'Anyone know what Severus is doing here?'

'You mean Master Snape?' That was Sorcha, sitting a few seats down from Charissa and her hangers-on settling in around her. 'He teaches Alchemy. You didn't know? I thought he was your noðaþir or something.'

'No, I knew that.' Much like how a few new electives opened up to students starting in third year, NEWT students had a couple extra classes available to them as well. Alchemy was one of them, and Severus had been teaching it since a couple years before she'd started here. Not surprising: there really weren't that many Master Alchemists available in Britain, and he was rather famously talented. But he only taught two sessions a week, and had very minimal office hours, so he was almost never in the castle. Hermione could probably count the number of times he'd shown up for a meal on one hand. 'And no, he's not my noðaþir.' Charissa left unsaid that she'd rather have him than her actual noðaþir, who never ceased to annoy her. 'I just meant he's never down here.'

Sorcha gave a helpless sort of shrug, as if to say, _Who knows what goes through that man's head?_

Not that Charissa had much more an idea than she did.

But, well, Seers were cheaters. From where she was sitting on the opposite side of the table, next to Jas, Luna leaned a bit forward, spoke in something of a stage-whisper. 'It looks like an academic discussion. It's not.'

Charissa glanced back to the staff table, picking out Severus again. He was sitting right next to Professor Vector, and they were in the middle of what seemed to be a rather energetic conversation. Huh. 'Colour?'

Luna was also facing in that general direction, but not gazing directly at them, her stare above their heads and to the side, distinctly unfocused. Because, of course, Luna technically wasn't _looking_ at them at all. Charissa and Jas had finally managed to convince Hermione that Luna wasn't mad at all — she consistently used a set of imaginary creatures (mostly ones her father, who _was_ mad, had made up) as a comparatively inoffensive metaphor to get across what she noticed with her talents without freaking anybody out. _Hermione_ had, after several attempts, finally managed to convince _Luna_ that that metaphor wasn't comparatively inoffensive at all. It just made her sound completely nuts. They'd come up with some colour symbolism instead. If anyone asked, she'd just say she was reading auras or something — even though that wasn't a thing that actually existed, it was a thing some people _believed_ existed, so it was relatively easy to pass off.

When Charissa had pointed out that little trick was rather Slytherin of her, Hermione had just said it was the obvious thing to do.

After a long moment of humming to herself, Luna said, 'Green, mostly. Some black and orange, but mostly green.'

Charissa had to think about that one for a moment. Orange Luna had assigned as a very conscious reference to the Weasley twins, who she'd grown up not far from — could be anything from light-hearted teasing to cruel mockery, depending on context. Black was either hatred or fury, that sort of thing. Green could mean a lot of things, but the most prominent was lust. Not too hard to figure out, then. 'Oh. Good luck to him, then. They'd be a fun couple.'

While Sorcha wasn't in the know as far as exactly what Luna could do, she'd obviously put it together herself; by the wide grin on her face, she agreed.

As everyone else moved to something else, Charissa heard Hermione mutter under her breath, 'There, was that so hard? Nargles and blitherspits, _honestly..._ ' She smirked, shaking her head to herself.

Trying not to look too bored, Charissa sat through the by-now familiar chatter of students catching up after a summer apart, then the Hat belting out yet another of its empty songs, then the slow, one-by-one Sorting of the new first-years. She recognised most of the names, even if she didn't know the kids they were attached to personally, but she didn't really expect anything else — insular society, selective school. She focused slightly more intently when she heard 'Potter, Linden' called up. Her younger brother waltzed on up to the little stool, sat himself down, and Professor McGonagall set the Hat down on his head. Practically on his shoulders, really, but the thing was oversized for even most adults, for some reason. Some moments passed, the Hat silent. This was taking longer than Charissa had thought it would. Maybe she had been wrong about—

'GRYFFINDOR!' The Hat was whipped away, and Linden popped to his feet, swept over to the raucously cheering table decked in red and gold. Charissa let out a long sigh.

There was likely no hope for him at all, now. She'd hoped at least one of her brothers wouldn't have been entirely corrupted by their father and their uncles...and Aunt Alice, she guessed. Mum didn't count: she'd said the Hat would have put her in Slytherin, but it'd told her it likely wouldn't be very fun for her, being muggleborn and all — _then_ came its inability to decide between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor. Being told that had made Charissa feel _much_ better about her own Sorting. She guessed Linden had been doomed from the start, but she could still hope Perry was still redeemable. Maybe Hufflepuff, he seemed the type.

No matter how often she heard people badmouth Hufflepuff, she'd still rather see her brother there than have yet another brash, thoughtless, aggravating Gryffindor in the family.

Through the characteristic noise of Gryffindor House, Charissa heard Jas mutter to himself, 'And thus proceeds to be surprised...absolutely nobody.' However disappointed she was, Charissa couldn't help smiling a little at that. He did have a point, there.

* * *

'You know there's going to be teams filled with NEWT students, right.'

Charissa frowned at Morag's back, slightly elevated from her position a few steps lower on the stairs. To be completely honest, she probably should have expected comments like that, but it still annoyed her a bit. So she might have sounded slightly annoyed when she responded, her voice already raised to cut above the tromp of feet climbing the girls' stair. 'I do beat the stuffing out of NEWT students in the duelling club all the time, you know. Neville and I are two of the highest-rated members who aren't also on one of the Hogwarts teams.' And their numbers were somewhat inflated from their practice duels with each other, but no point in explaining that. 'Susan isn't far behind us, either. I think we'd do better than you're assuming.'

As they turned onto their year's landing, Morag sent her something of a disbelieving look. She tried not to be too annoyed by that. 'I can't imagine you're really that good. _ð'Vurgen_ , it's our first day of fourth year, no one should be that good.'

Before she could say anything past her suddenly-sprouting smirk, Hermione said, 'I've seen one of her practice duels with Neville. It was sort of scary, honestly.'

Charissa held back a wince. Before, Hermione had mostly avoided her duelling lessons, for reasons Charissa had never really bothered to ask about. But soon after they started doing whatever exactly this was they were doing, Hermione had dropped by during one of her practices with Neville. It'd been days before Hermione had stopped being strangely skittish around her. 'You don't really need advanced difficult spells to duel well anyway, just be quicker and smarter than whoever you're up against. My mother is also a bit ridiculously powerful, always was, and I think I inherited a bit of it.'

Which was a perfectly reasonable-sounding explanation for the advanced difficult magic she did use, the occasional thing someone her age really shouldn't be able to manage. A child of a sorceress wasn't guaranteed to become one themselves, but it did happen. Of course, both she and her mother were pretty sure it actually had something to do with her Faetouch. Mum had said that, while she had been unusually talented at Charissa's age, she still had Mum beat when it came to the raw power she could draw on. But she didn't really feel like explaining that. She'd decided right away to keep the Faetouch thing as secret as possible, a decision Mum had instantly backed her up on. She hadn't even told Hermione yet, and neither did she ever plan to.

At the least, Morag seemed to accept that. With a slightly disbelieving shrug, but still.

A few minutes later, minutes Charissa mostly spent setting up her desk, Hermione slipped out of the room, toothbrush and toothpaste in hand. She still thought it a little odd Hermione insisted on doing that. Charissa used a charm for the same purpose, one she had offered to teach Hermione, but she'd sort of awkwardly refused. Oh well. She started changing for bed, listening to Morag babbling off about some pointless society gossip, honestly she wasn't paying that much attention. By the names dropped it didn't have anything to do with anyone she was closely related to or was all that familiar with, so she didn't see why she would care. One of those things about other people she still didn't really understand.

She belatedly realised, if Hermione's usual itinerary applied, exactly what state she would be in when the other girl got back. Her face split into a wide smirk; luckily, Morag seemed to think it was in reaction to whatever she was talking about, that could have been awkward to explain.

Her guess of the timing came out almost exactly right. She was standing in front of her trunk in nothing but her sleep shorts, turning her thin little top — which she'd only started wearing to bed in the first place because Hermione got all uncomfortable when she caught her without it — around in her hands to get it oriented correctly to slip over her head, when a high squeak at the door announced Hermione's return. Charissa glanced that way quick to see Hermione's face was rapidly flushing a deep red.

Charissa took the moment her face was obscured while putting the stupid thing on to suppress the slight smugness trying to fight its way into her expression.

When she could see again, Hermione had shifted over to her own trunk, her back turned to Charissa, flipping through her clothes. She also noticed Morag had broken off practically in mid-sentence, giving Hermione's back something of a weird look. Not surprising, it was a bit obvious how much more awkward than usual Hermione was being. She'd gotten the impression British muggles were by default enormous prudes, and Hermione had clearly absorbed a bit of that mindset — Charissa and Morag, and some of the other girls on occasion, had made Hermione uncomfortable when it came to certain things almost from the beginning. But Hermione had gradually gotten used to it over the last couple years. This level of sudden awkwardness was very conspicuous.

Of course, Charissa knew exactly why. Morag didn't have that information, though.

Charissa got an idea. In the second after she got the idea, she really, really, _really_ wanted to do it. She could have stopped herself, sure. But she couldn't quite remember just now why exactly she always did that.

She slid across the floor, making her steps as soft and silent as possible, until she was standing shortly behind Hermione. Trying to make her smirk slightly less potentially annoying, Charissa said, 'Maïa?'

Hermione started at that. Not too unexpected, since Charissa didn't think she'd used her nickname once ever — Charissa didn't like the one Jas had picked for her, to be honest, so she'd sort of avoided using Hermione's as a subtle thanks for her not using it. But she felt like it this time, so why not. It took a second, Hermione's shoulders lifting and falling in a long breath, before she turned around to face her. Her smirk fought her again at how Hermione's eyes kept slipping down before snapping back up to hers. She was basically in her knickers right now, sure, but it still...amused her? Yes, amused her. That felt almost like the right word. Her voice just the slightest bit shaky, Hermione said only, 'Yeah?'

Forcing herself to move slowly and gently, giving Hermione every chance to pull away if she wanted, Charissa slid closer, until she could feel Hermione's robes through her much thinner sleepwear, a slight tickling against her legs. An ecstatic thrill skittering across her skin at what exactly she was about to do, Charissa raised both arms, settling them over Hermione's shoulders, crossing at the wrists behind her head. Ignoring the slightly panicked look on Hermione's face, she leaned up on her toes a little — ergh, she wished she were taller — and lightly touched her lips to Hermione's.

Ooh, yes. Much better than that practice Dora had given her, she hadn't been wrong about that. A tingle ran through her, a head to toe shiver of electric delight, a sudden surge of warmth spreading hips through chest. It took a fair amount of concentration to keep her lips loose, force them not to tighten with a smile. Yes, very nice. She held her place for a moment, absently noting with no little disappointment that Hermione was still as a statue, before slipping back slightly. Just far back enough that she could see Hermione's face, though slightly out of focus, which was certainly more distance than she wanted right now.

It was hard to tell from this close, but that looked like an expression of shock staring back at her. For a couple seconds, nothing more happened, Hermione just silently staring back at her, Charissa starting to wonder to herself if this had been a really stupid idea. But then, Hermione moved, her arms slowly, cautiously, folding over Charissa's lower back; her breath caught slightly when Hermione, still with clear gentle hesitance, hugged Charissa slightly closer to her. Forcing down the giggle clawing at her throat from the sudden flood of giddiness rising in her chest, Charissa slid her own arms in slightly, fingers slipping a little into Hermione's curly, slightly scratching hair, pulled herself again up to her lips.

She noticed instantly Hermione had never done this before. It was really obvious, with how awkward and clumsy and unsure she seemed. But Charissa entirely didn't care. She was far too light and warm, far too pleased right now to give a damn. Besides, Hermione would be getting _plenty_ of practice in the near future, if she had anything to say about it. They kissed again and again, for what felt like long minutes, light, soft touches fluttering just at the surface. Everything was skin, and hair, and heat, and the slight mintiness from that toothpaste stuff on Hermione's breath, and Charissa felt so full of light and fire, the rush of life and magic, she was internally surprised she hadn't set her own clothes aflame yet.

Or Hermione's, for that matter.

But she had to stop. That familiar heat was rapidly sharpening, that familiar heavy pressure in her chest, driving her forward, seducing her into action. Action she was very aware Hermione would _not_ be comfortable with. Shame. So, with a private grimace of will, she slowly yanked herself away from Hermione's softness and warmth, pushed back against Hermione's arms until there was a whisper of air between them. Smiling up at a somewhat dazed-looking Hermione — okay, fine, to be perfectly honest, probably smirking again — she said, 'Good night.'

All Hermione managed was a slightly shaky, 'Mm-hmm.'

Yep. She was definitely smirking. And, as she walked over to her own bed, if there was somewhat more of a sway to her hips than usual, well, she couldn't really be blamed for that at the moment, could she?

For the first few seconds after she slid the curtains around her bed closed, there was nothing but silence on the other side. Then Morag said, 'When did _that_ happen?' She sounded distinctly surprised. Almost suspiciously surprised, actually, like she hadn't thought such a thing were even possible.

It took a long moment for Hermione to find her voice. And even then, she still sounded a bit breathless and unsteady. Charissa couldn't help feeling slightly smug at that. 'A few weeks ago. She, ah, asked me out back in April, but I kinda, a little...stalled...I guess...'

'Hmm.' Charissa heard the fluttering of curtains, likely Morag slipping into bed. 'As long as you two remember to put up silencing barriers, I don't care. Go nuts.'

The only response Hermione had for that was mortified stammering.

Charissa again forced back a giggle. Speaking of silencing barriers, she reached for her wand. Kissing Hermione like that had left her very warm and tingly and _tense_ — she had something she had to take care of before she'd be able to make it to sleep any time soon. She made sure to pick a unidirectional variety, and listened very carefully for the softest shuffling of cloth from the room beyond, the soft flutter of breath, all she knew of Hermione changing for bed.

All she knew, but far less than she imagined.

* * *

 _October 31st, 1994_

* * *

When she'd first heard of the Tournament this year, this was not at all what Hermione had been expecting. She'd thought it would be a big event, sure, but still rather modest in scale, to match the smaller and more insular magical society.

But what she hadn't known at the time was that the peoples of the ICW, and a few immediate neighbours, had a long tradition of having a sizeable gathering every decade or two, festivals often running for months. Even now, there was a long series of extravagant international celebrations going on all over the Continent, festivities planned to continue for roughly a year overall, the entire thing planned to celebrate the fifty year anniversary of the fall of Grindelwald. Hogwarts had been chosen to host the Tournament exactly because Albus Dumbledore, who'd defeated the man himself, just so happened to be Headmaster. Apparently, the mages of Europe were using the occasion to go absolutely insane. The opening feast of the Tournament was no different.

The open, relatively flat space between Hogsmeade village and the gates isolating the school grounds had been entirely transformed. It was the only place in the valley big enough. An enormous area of earth had been hollowed out into the slightest of depressions, the curve downward barely noticeable. At the center was a circular stage, a long table running across it, the familiar yellow and blue starburst banner of the ICW draped over as a tablecloth, the Goblet of Fire crackling fitfully atop a plinth nearby. Surrounding the center were dozens and dozens of tables, each curved to various degrees to suggest concentric circles. The tables were divided into sectors, each decorated slightly differently — Hermione thought the tablecloths, displaying the insignia of one member nation or another, were originally provided by the ICW organisers, but the multitude of guests had obviously made their own additions.

And there really were a multitude of guests. Hermione was positive there were more mages here than she'd ever seen in one place before. Hundreds of them, _thousands_ of them. The air was filled with the overlapping chatter of numerous voices, languages from dozens of nations mixing into a chaotic jumble. The occasional burst of magic from here or there, or the multiple sources of ethnic music she couldn't even identify, didn't really help. Honestly, it was all conspiring to give her a bit of a headache. It was practically impossible to keep up a conversation with either Charissa or Luna, despite that they were sitting right next to her.

So she'd mostly spent most of this enormous group feast...festival...thing watching the people around her. She'd never seen mages from a country other than Britain before. The place was chaotic enough that she didn't really pick up a lot, but she noticed there was a great variety of traditions across Europe; the people in no two sectors dressed exactly alike. One group of people had her blushing nearly every time she looked in their direction. Not everyone was wearing the same sort of style, but she noticed one that involved something rather similar to a waistcoat extending to roughly the navel, but with beads braided into streamers of cloth flowing from every hem, the thing worn open over bare chest, almost always paired with delicately pleated skirts, most extending to the knees, but some shorter and some longer, everything made of a patchwork of bright colours. With how cool it was tonight, Hermione was certain they were using warming charms; by their skin tone, on the average a darker shade than nearly any other, she knew they had to be from the eastern Mediterranean, couldn't be used to it. But what made her so awkward was the fact that the same thing was worn by _both_ sexes, varying only slightly in cut and decoration — which meant, only about a hundred degrees or so around the circle from her, were dozens of men wearing skirts, and dozens more women who were essentially topless. There were a few styles of clothing around that were _unusual_ , sure, and a few might be playing at the edge of risqué, but these were the only ones she'd consider just plain _indecent_.

After a short, shouted exchange with Charissa, Hermione learned those people were Belak. She guessed that made a little bit of sense — Crete did have one of the hottest climates of any nation present. And at least now she knew what magical destination to avoid on a vacation, if she didn't want her face to be red the whole time.

Above people chattering and laughing and singing, sparks were occasionally thrown into the air by one reveller or another, the air painted with magical light in all colours of the rainbow. Enchanted constructs in the form of flying creatures or beings both extant and mythical buzzed over their heads, occasionally getting in minor, simulated scuffles with each other. Maybe some of those hadn't been great choices — simulacrum of some of the less popular beings were targeted by one group or another. One Hermione recognised as the natural avian form of a caryd had a wing taken off by a quartet of cutting curses from her own sector or one of their neighbours, she hadn't seen for sure from her angle; one harpy had even been brought down by amassed spellfire from the Greeks. While both acts of vandalism had been met by scattered cheers, the instant outpouring of rage from nations more friendly with either group drowned it out by a fair bit. When the caryd had been hit, Hermione had momentarily been convinced the _Aquitaines_ were about to attack the British. It hadn't helped that she'd noticed Charissa draw her wand under the table until the moment had passed, even though they were nowhere near the front, so to speak.

The point was, it was very loud, it was very chaotic, and Hermione was getting an enormous headache.

Finally, after what felt like _hours_ , Headmaster Dumbledore got to his feet from where he sat at the center of the raised table. Hermione had to wonder if he'd gotten the position of honour, so to speak, for this event because he was the Headmaster of Hogwarts or Supreme Consul to the ICW. Or maybe even in recognition of his famous duel with Grindelwald? She guessed it didn't really matter. The aged sorcerer got to his feet, walked around the table, and came to stand within a few paces of the Goblet. A wide smile on his wrinkled face, the characteristic twinkle in his eye visible even from here, he raised both hands at his sides, patiently calling for silence. It took quite some time for him to get it, but eventually everyone was quiet, the sheer number of people great enough the occasional fidgeting and whisper still filled their depression with noisy susurring.

And Dumbledore gave a speech. Rather more lengthy a one than Hermione would have thought appropriate. All going on about mages across the world uniting as brothers and sisters, working together for common purpose, peace and understanding and so forth and so on. And a section of standing firm against the reach of darkness, which Hermione didn't think could be very politic of him — laws regulating "dark" magic, which Hermione had learned from Lily via Charissa wasn't even a factually accurate term, were far more broad and strict in Britain than nearly anywhere else. Of course, Dumbledore was talking about hate and fear and suffering for the most part, but metaphorical hinting at the Dark Arts was obvious, even if he didn't directly say it. But anyway, he did manage to go on, the entire speech amplified to everyone present through the tables before them, instantly translated to the dominant language of the disparate nations each table hosted, the dinnerware all rattling slightly with each syllable.

Apparently those enchantments had been a nightmare to design and test; there were reasons such things weren't used all the time.

Finally, long after the sun had set, just as Dumbledore finished up talking about the process of the Tournament itself, and where Champions should go tonight immediately after they were selected for more specific instructions, the blue-white fire in the Goblet suddenly flared a bloody red, sharp crackling partially hidden by the crowd's collective gasp. Charissa gave a peculiar flinch next to her, her hand Hermione had long ago taken under the table tightening in a jerk. Huh. What was up with that? Her sensitivity to fire magic, maybe? She shrugged it off, and just squeezed back. A slip of parchment was shot out of the Goblet, fluttering so perfectly to Dumbledore's hand Hermione knew he had to have used magic to make it happen.

Unfolding the parchment in his fingers, Dumbledore's voice again rattled out from the table. 'The Champion from the Instytut Krakowie is—' Dumbledore left a dramatic pause, the air around going still with anticipation. '— _Viktor Rumenov!'_

The applause for this Viktor Rumenov was much more exuberant than Hermione would expect. While the outpouring of noise from the sector with tables all bearing the golden Bulgarian lion — apparently, that symbol was used in both worlds — was completely expected, the ecstatic cheering from all sides confused her. She asked Charissa if there was a reason for that, and then Luna, who could tell her what Charissa hadn't known: Rumenov was apparently a famous quidditch player. Oh, well. Alright then.

When Rumenov, a tall man with a somewhat awkward gait and dark hair cropped shorter than nearly any wizard she'd ever seen, was off the stage and squirreled away, the Goblet again flared red, with another flinch from Charissa, and Dumbledore again snatched a slip of parchment out of the air. Actually, that wasn't parchment at all, but plain, far more modern-looking paper. 'The Champion from i Attikí Akaðimía is—' And another hushed, dramatic pause; can't fault Dumbledore for lack of showmanship, she guessed. '—Efrosini Avju.'

Far more moderate cheering, though the Greek mages, as well as the Turkish, Belak, and Egyptians — none of the three were technically part of the ICW, here as guests — were plenty loud enough to make up for it. Hermione thought she heard some of the Egyptians and Belak singing, but she couldn't tell what it was. Certainly wasn't in English anyway. Efrosini Avju herself was a rather short girl, looking thin and tiny through the blue and gold uniform of the practically ancient school of magic near Athens, her skin tone and features looking distinctly Middle Eastern to Hermione. Her long, curly black hair was held back by a distinctive red headband she'd noticed a minority of the Greek students were wearing; there was a white and black design in the centre, over her forehead, but Hermione had no idea what it meant. Unlike Rumenov, who'd seemed bored with the whole thing, Hermione could see from here Avju had a brilliant smile on her face, maybe even closer to a smirk, and almost seemed to be laughing.

The process repeated, Dumbledore again snatching a slip of paper shot out from the spitting Goblet. Oh, no, parchment this time, not paper. 'The Champion from Institutet av Durmstrangr is—' The predictable pause again. '— _Asbjørn Troelsen!'_

As the crowd went crazy again, the Germanic nations notably noisier than the others, Hermione took a moment to examine the third Champion. Wearing the brown and red Durmstrang uniform, he was a tall, broad-shouldered young man with long dirty-blond hair and a wide smile on his face. She knew Durmstrang had a bad reputation as a school catering to the Dark Arts. A reputation she knew to be factually false. Durmstrang _did_ offer a few electives in subjects that were regulated in Britain — they taught both runic casting and simple blood magic as electives to upper-years, their equivalent of NEWT students, and their Healing curriculum included a number of black and white magics both they wouldn't be allowed to freely teach in Britain. Of course, so did most other schools on the Continent; runic casting was unusual, but the school's curriculum was otherwise European standard.

She really had no idea why Durmstrang had such a terrible reputation in Britain — she gathered from the perfectly welcoming reception Troelsen was getting it wasn't as bad elsewhere. Was it only because it was Grindelwald's alma mater? because Britain was so much more restrictive on what magics were permitted to citizens? She didn't know. Whatever the reason, Troelsen didn't look any more dangerous of a sort than the other three. Despite his somewhat imitating stature, he certainly seemed more warm and friendly than Rumenov.

Again, the newly-selected Champion wandered off, and again the Goblet spat out another name — the slip Dumbledore snatched out of the air was paper again. 'The Champion from Academia de Bèubastons is—' Hermione blinked a bit at the name, but almost instantly figured it out; that must be what they call Beauxbatons in _proven_ _çal_ , which was, after all, the language used by mages in the area the school was in — Beauxbatons, she'd learned, wasn't in the magical nation in France that actually spoke French. Weird people didn't always call it Bèubastons then, come to think of it. She wasn't so distracted not to notice a flicker of annoyance cross the Headmaster's face. '— _Fleur Delacour_.'

Well. This was interesting. The reception to this name was not at all like the others. The _Aquitaines_ and the French were still cheering and applauding, and the Greeks, Egyptians, and Belak seemed not far behind them, but everywhere else things were far more ambiguous. She saw plenty of people only politely clapping, a number of people distinctly annoyed. She even heard _booing_ — disproportionately from the British sector of the audience. Really? The older girl gliding up to the stage didn't strike Hermione as that controversial, not enough for everyone to get all silly over. She was wearing the same deep blue uniform as the other Beauxbatons students, the silks in a somewhat thinner, briefer, less anachronistic style than was common in Britain. She had the same short, narrow-brimmed hat as the others — Hermione had noticed hats in general had never gone out of style in magical Europe as they had on the muggle side — with the only major difference being three white-brown feathers tucked into the side. She was tall and graceful, skin so pale and flawless she almost seemed to glow in the evening darkness, a long braid of hair draped over her shoulder such a bright gleaming blonde it looked to be liquid silver.

Actually... She looked...rather nice. _Really_ nice.

What...what had she been thinking about again? She couldn't...

Hmm...

She jumped at the feel of Charissa's breath against her ear, her face rapidly flushing red. Charissa said, 'Well, so much for the Tournament part of the Tournament.'

It took Hermione some moments to find her voice again, working at the muscles in her throat until they finally responded properly. The process went a fair bit faster once shimmering hair and swaying hips finally faded out of sight. 'What?'

When Charissa spoke again, she sounded fairly amused. 'Do I have to teach you occlumency now?'

Hermione turned to glance at the other girl, which was rather difficult to do with how close she was sitting — practically the only way they'd be able to hear each other here without shouting into each other's ears. 'Teach me what?'

She didn't answer, just smiled, shaking her head to herself a little. ' _Delacour_ isn't her real name. It's just what Clan Çyr calls themselves in French. _Fleur_ probably isn't her real name either, come to think of it, but that's not really the point. Unless something really weird comes up, I'd be shocked if she doesn't win.'

'Oh.' The Çyr, she knew, were a clan of carīdwð, one of the more influential ones in western Europe. The carīdwð, of course, were Fae. Lesser Fae, but still Fae. Hermione would even wager a guess this particular caryd was most likely _iyumē_ — most of their kind ever seen out in the human world like this were. Which was sort of surprising at first. In their own culture, _iyumē_ carīdwð were sort of comparable to the male gender in humans. She had known at the time such things couldn't necessarily be equated across species, but Delacour had just seemed so _pretty_...and graceful...beautiful, really...

She had to clear her throat again.

Doing her best to ignore the teasing smirk on Charissa's face, Hermione stared steadily up at the stage, where the Goblet was again flaring red. The Headmaster snatched the slip of parchment out of the air, the fire in the Goblet guttering out entirely an instant later. 'The Champion from Hogwarts Academy—' Hermione could practically feel the tension in the British section all around her as Dumbledore again let a dramatic pause linger. A wide grin on his face, he called out, '— _Cedric Diggory!'_

The cheers from the British were so loud Hermione winced, clapped both hands over her ears. Was that _really_ necessary? She watched as Diggory, looking nothing but a slightly smaller, slightly bouncier version of Troelsen in Hogwarts black and Hufflepuff yellow, sprung up to his feet and flounced up to the stage. She didn't know very much about Diggory, to be honest. She knew he was a Hufflepuff prefect — sixth-year, she thought — and captain for their quidditch team. Decent marks, she'd heard, in Hogwarts' junior division duelling team as of just this term, his father someone of some importance in the Department for the Regulation of Magical Creatures. Actually, he might even be the Director, Hermione couldn't remember for sure. It was a bit odd for her not to be able to remember something, but when she'd heard of the current policies of the Department she'd been _entirely furious_ , so that could have something to do with it. She hadn't heard Diggory make any fuss over Professor Lupin, so he might personally be better than the bigots in the Department, she didn't know. Very likely candidate for Head Boy next year. She didn't know much more than that.

Oh, except for how thoroughly fanciable seemingly every girl (and more than a handful of boys) in the school found him. The last couple years, she'd overheard people gush over him almost every day. Ridiculous.

A few minutes later, after another grandiose speech from the Headmaster, they were all dismissed, the Hogwarts students quite firmly ordered to head straight back to the school. She fully expected many of the upper years to hang back to participate in the festivities extending further into the night, but she, at least, would rather be heading back in. It was starting to get sort of late. So she and Charissa got to their feet, started pushing their way through the crowd in the direction of the gates to the grounds. Well, Charissa did most of the pushing; Hermione was perfectly fine with being guided through the chaotic morass by the hand.

After what felt like far too long, but was probably only a couple minutes, the crowd thinned significantly, reduced to a stream of students heading toward the castle. Still noisy, but not nearly as bad. She noticed after a glance they were surrounded by their usual group — there was Luna right next to her still, then Jas over by Charissa, Gwyneira and Ginny trailing along with him, and a few steps behind Charissa—

Oh. Great. Black was there, aggravating smirk and all. At least she wasn't saying anything. She just seemed to be...staring, with almost gleeful delight, at where Charissa was still holding her hand. Erm.

Hermione turned her head back to face forward, doing her best not to be too self-conscious.

'So,' Jas was saying, 'I bet you a hundred galleons the Delacour bird wins.' Hermione momentarily wondered if he'd intended the use of "bird" to be literal. Then she couldn't help wondering if Jas really had a hundred galleons to bet with. That was, what, twenty-five thousand pounds?

But Charissa just snorted, said in a low drawl, 'I don't feel like giving you a hundred galleons for free right now, no.' She heard Black snicker a little, and had to withhold the urge to turn a glare back at her.

'At least the other events should still be interesting.' That comment was from Ginny, and the sharp derision on her voice was very obvious. After a moment of confusion, Hermione belatedly remembered the political leanings of the Weasley family — no, she wouldn't expect them to be very pleased to find a caryd in a Tournament like this. Actually, she wouldn't be surprised if Ginny had relatives who wouldn't be pleased with the idea of carīdwð being allowed wands.

She couldn't help feeling depressed over British politics. On the one hand, there was the Dark alliance, who were quite insistent about preserving traditional law that never failed to strike Hermione as authoritarian. On the other hand, there was the Light alliance, who were much more liberal when it came to individual freedoms for humans, but were far less permissive than even the Dark when it came to non-humans — laws restricting the freedoms of werewolves and various Fae races, restricting the movements of merpeople and centaurs and such, all those sorts of things were almost always proposed by Light politicians, and passed by overwhelming Light consensus. Some of the people in neither, instead part of the neutral Bones–Longbottom alliance, were a fair sight better, sure, but even they were hit and miss. And, since seats in the Wizengamot were hereditary, and there was very little hope of that changing any time soon, there was precious little Hermione could ever pray to do about it.

Stupid archaic magical Britain and their stupid outdated authoritarian oligarchic nonsense...

'Mm.' The hum was from Luna, who was staring up at the sky in her usual dreamlike daze. 'You're still planning to put together a duelling team, yes?'

Hermione felt Charissa's slight shrug through their joined hands. 'Yes, Luna, I am. I've got Neville, Tracey, and the Gaunt twins who've already agreed.'

'The Gaunts? Alex and Hesper? Really?' Ginny, once again with annoyance and hatred on her voice. She was in the same year with the Gaunts and, Hermione knew, they did _not_ get along. Not that Gryffindors and Slytherins really ever did, and not that Hermione's opinion of those two was much different than hers, but still.

'Yes, the Gaunts. They're only third years, sure, but they're not bad. And they have that whole twin bond going for them. They should be brilliant in doubles.'

Hermione somehow managed not to shudder at the thought.

'Hmm, two spots left. I'd take one, if you like.'

Hermione started, turned to stare over at Luna. _What_? Was Luna serious? Did she even know _how_? Hermione was certain the tiny, delicate, spacey little girl wasn't even in the duelling club, Charissa would have mentioned it. And she was just so... She _wasn't_ being serious, was she? By the doubtful tone on her voice, Charissa's opinion must be much like her own. 'I don't know about that, Luna. Have you even done much duelling before?'

'Not really. I've done a little practice with Auntie, but not a lot. I still think I'd do well.'

'Oh, right, somehow almost forgot _Cassie Lovegood_ is your aunt.' When Hermione shot Charissa a confused look at the emphasis she'd put on Lovegood's name, she added, 'Perfect singles record in the ICW student tournament, couple decades ago.'

...

 _Well_. Hermione certainly hadn't seen _that_ one coming.

'I don't know, Luna,' Charissa was saying when Hermione returned to reality. 'I don't want to have too many from younger years.'

'How about I come to a duelling club meeting, and beat you in a challenge?'

A smile on her voice, Charissa said, 'Well, if you challenge me and win, I suppose I'd have to let you in, wouldn't I?'

'Alright, then.'

Hermione still wasn't sure if Luna were serious or not. But then, she felt that way about Luna most of the time.

From just behind them, Black said, 'And the other open spot?'

Charissa turned to stare at the younger girl, looking distinctly baffled. Not surprising, really: she'd just almost turned Luna down because she didn't want too many younger students, and Black was a year under even her. She was only a second-year, had barely even started in the duelling club a few weeks ago. But after a moment of staring at her, Charissa shrugged. 'I suppose you can challenge me too, if you really want. Don't expect me to go easy on you just 'cause you're my cousin, though.'

'Wouldn't dream of it.'

Hermione didn't know what it was, but something about Black's crooked smirk sent an unpleasant chill down her spine. Shaking her head to herself, she turned back around again, slipping slightly closer to Charissa.

She _really_ didn't like that girl.

* * *

noðaþir (IPA: /nɔ.ðɑ.θɪr/ roughly "no-tha-thir") — _Brīþwn term for godfather. Made up by smashing together the Welsh word for "sponsor" and Irish word for "father". And yes, her actual noðaþir Charissa referred to is Sirius._

[those people were Belak] — _The style of clothing described is inspired by a few frescos found in Minoan palaces in Crete, with a little bit of influence from elsewhere. The same could be said of most Belẽs cultural details I have in my head, actually._

Viktor Rumenov — _Yes, I changed Viktor's last name. The name was picked to be as close as possible phonetically, but actually be a Bulgarian surname. In case you're wondering, no, he's not related to the similar-sounding Russian Imperial House. His father's name is just Rumen. And no, he doesn't go to Durmstrang. He instead goes to my headcanon school that's actually linguistically/culturally/geographically appropriate. Krakow is pretty far away from Bulgaria, but it's still a lot closer than where JKR says Durmstrang is._

Efrosini Avju (Greek: Ευφροσυνη Αβτγωυ) — _Something like "eff-roh-_ _ **see**_ _-nee ahv-_ _ **jew**_ " _; not perfectly correct, but close enough. The last name is actually Turkish, would be rendered Avcı in the Turkish alphabet. Part of that pause was just Dumbledore figuring out how the hell to say "τγωυ_ " _, it's not a sequence of letters used in native Greek. Also why he didn't say this name quite as enthusiastically as Viktor and Asbjørn_ , _he was less sure of himself._

Asbjørn Troelsen — _The "j" is a y sound, and the "ø" is close enough to an "oh" you might as well just say that. It's not a sound in English._

Academia de Bèubastons — _Occitan; pronounced roughly "uh-coh-_ _ **day**_ _-myah day_ _ **behw**_ _**bahs**_ _-toons", though there would be variation depending on exactly where the speaker is from. I am guessing somewhat, especially on "academia" — I couldn't find very good Occitan resources, I actually had to make up the word, spent some time agonising over how it should be pronounced, and thus what diacritics it should have, before deciding it was fine with none. I'm crazy. And yes, it is still called Académie de Magie Beauxbâtons in standard French. I'm going with the author's original assertion the school is near Cannes, and, well, I'm sorry JKR, but they didn't speak "French" in that area of France until very, very recently — like, twentieth century recently. Which brings me to my next note..._

 _Proven_ _çal_ (French; IPA: /prɔ.vɛ̃.'sal/, roughly "pro-vehn- **sal** ") — _Nerd time. The many languages and dialects descended from Latin long ago developed into three major groups. Traditionally, these are separated by how they say "yes" — the "oïl" languages in the north half of France, parts of western Germany, and southern Belgium (including French); the "si" languages in Italy, parts of Switzerland, extreme south-eastern France, and most of Spain/Portugal (including Italian/Spanish/Portuguese); and the "òc" languages in the south half of France and the eastern shore of Spain (including Catalan). "_ _Proven_ _çal"_ _is the French term for the òc language ("Occitan") spoken in Provence; it's called_ _Proven_ _çau ("proo-vayn-sau") in itself; but since Hermione speaks French she says provençal._ _With nationalistic language programs in the early twentieth century (and to a somewhat lesser extent through to today) and the advent of mass communication, the various Occitan languages have been quickly dying — in Provence, only about 15% of the population still natively speak Proven_ _çau —_ _but I wouldn't expect the muggle linguistic situation to affect the magical community nearly as much. They should still speak Proven_ _çau. Even if I moved the school to its retconned location in the Pyrenees, they should still speak one Occitan language or another — or hell, maybe even Euskara! Speaking French French there wouldn't make any sense. Sorry, JKR._

 _Aquitaines_ (French; IPA: /a ki tɛ nɛ/, roughly "a-key-teh-neh", but that last vowel may or may not drop, dunno, don't speak French) — _There Hermione goes speaking French again! As I've mentioned before, national borders on the magical side in my headcanon aren't quite the same as they are in real life. They tend to follow linguistic/cultural borders, not non-magical national ones. The magical country Hermione is referring to, called Aquitània natively, covers most of the south half of France, as well as, oh, the east-northeast quarter of Spain or so, speaking Occitan languages like_ _Proven_ _çau and Gascon and Català, with a small minority of Euskara-speakers. The name comes from an influential pre-Roman tribe native to the southwest of France, who gave their name to a large Roman province (the Aquitaine region of France got the name from the same source)._

Çyr — _pronounced something like "hurr" (IPA: /çy:r/) by the carīdwð; close enough, anyway, that vowel isn't in English, same one written ī in Brīþwn words. In French, pronounced sort of like "sear" (IPA: /si:ʁ/)_


	22. Fourth Year — Three Duels

_November 5th, 1994_

* * *

When Charissa walked into the duelling club room, she was momentarily surprised by who she saw standing chatting with Flitwick — at least, who she was pretty sure she saw. That did look like Dora's public face, and she was in the black, red, and silver Auror uniform. Seemed likely. But, just to be sure, she walked a little closer. 'Dora?'

The taller woman turned her head, gave Charissa a wide smile. 'Baby Cousin. Don't know if your father told you, but I named you and your brothers cīrwayd.'

Charissa froze in mid-step at that. There were several different kinds of protection a House could give someone who didn't happen to be a member. Cīrwayd was the highest tier, by tradition solely given to close relations only a generation or two removed from the sponsor House. From an older phrase literally meaning "duty from blood", individuals who had been given cīrwayd by another House essentially had half-membership — the House would stand for them socially and legally in practically any situation as though they were one of their own, as far as they could go while still acknowledging the primacy of the person's own House. Should something catastrophic happen and Charissa ended up expelled from House Potter, this meant she'd become a Black almost automatically: Dora would only need to state publicly she was claiming primacy, and it was done. Cīrwayd was essentially saying she was already a member of the family, just in a different House. So it was a big deal.

Momentarily, she had to wonder if Dora had thought through the political ramifications of House Black, a traditionally Dark House, claiming cīrwayd for all three children and thus quite literally _half_ of House Potter, a traditionally Light House. But she doubted Dora could have missed it — she wasn't an idiot, after all. Come to think of it, that could even be a large part of why she'd done it in the first place.

Once she was done processing that, she gave a quick bow of her head as appropriate. 'Thank you, Lady Black.'

Dora rolled her eyes at the title, but minimally enough anyone more than a couple metres away probably wouldn't have noticed. 'You're welcome, Miss Potter.' Her eyes flicked slightly to Charissa's side. 'Can't do the same for you, Hermione. It's only for blood relatives.' Dora did seem to like Hermione; Charissa preferred not to know why.

Around here, with a crooked, very goblin smile and a little wiggle of his fingers, Professor Flitwick tactfully took his leave, wandering over to talk to a couple people from the Hogwarts senior division team.

'That's fine.' At a glance, Charissa noticed Hermione looked somewhat anxious, glancing around at the room, all the club members, with a wary look in her eyes. Which wasn't too surprising, since this was the first duelling club meeting Hermione had ever come to. It wasn't to be a normal meeting: the duelling tournament alongside the main Tournament had been officially announced just a couple days ago, so people putting together teams were today sort of declaring so to the club and taking, one could say, applications. The usual challenges at the end would probably happen too. She knew Hermione had been avoiding coming to these, because knowing just how dangerous a lot of her classmates were made her uncomfortable. But since today was a somewhat important today, and also comparatively light on the actual duelling, she'd decided to swallow her unease, and show up anyway. Unnecessary, but fine. 'I think my mother has been arranging something to get me settled legally for after Hogwarts. I don't know what, but she's hinted she's working on it.' Charissa knew Hermione was somewhat anxious about that — her mother had said it'd be ready shortly after her fifteenth birthday, but that had been over a month ago, and she'd heard nothing.

'I know,' Dora said, her voice sounding distinctly gleeful. 'She's working with Dad on it. Can't tell you, though. It's a surprise. I will say your mother would almost certainly be a Slytherin if she'd gone to Hogwarts — her idea is made of equal parts sneaky cleverness and a _fuck off you don't like it_ attitude, it's brilliant.'

If anything, that just seemed to make Hermione more anxious. Charissa looked back to Dora to hide her smirk. 'Not that I mind seeing you, but what are you doing here, anyway?'

A look of annoyance crossed Dora's face. 'Well, with so many international guests here for the duration of the Tournament, the Ministry wanted to maintain a higher security presence than the Valley usually gets. Showing the Continent our best face, you see. Alongside other arrangements, they decided they wanted an Auror triad to basically live here, just in case.'

'I'm guessing you were lucky enough to land this premier assignment.'

Dora grimaced. 'With Shack and Kelvin, yes. Muirgen, I'm so _bored_. Samhain was the _greatest party I'd ever seen_ , sure, but I was on duty the whole time! It was _awful_.'

The disgruntled look on Dora's face was so extreme — knowing her, she'd probably morphed her face to exaggerate it even further — Charissa was having serious trouble not laughing at her. When she finally had control of her own throat, she said, 'Not quite the excitement you were expecting, I see.'

'It's not really that, exactly.' Charissa wasn't convinced, but okay. 'I just don't feel I'm doing much good here. I mean, we've hardly done anything, just stood around watching people, doing occasional detection and tracking charms. Well, okay, we had to detain some bloke from Saxony for a bit, but he didn't do anything serious, we let him go after a bit of stern glaring. It's kind of making me wish I weren't Lady Black. Pretty sure that's why they stuck me here.'

'Can't really blame them for that.' The entire point of the order in the first place was to stand between innocent people and bad things — there was a mortality rate. Highest in the first few years, when they're still learning the way of things, before they get enough experience under their belt it takes something really nuts for them not to be able to handle it. To be completely honest, Charissa sometimes thought some of the older Aurors had _too much_ experience; Sir Moody in particular had always struck her as someone who'd stayed on the job a bit too long. But, she could understand why they'd be leery of having their newest Auror, fresh out of her apprenticeship, also happen to be the newly-invested Lady of a Noble and Most Ancient House. A lot of people would be very displeased if they let anything avoidable happen to her.

With a little sigh, Dora said, 'Yeah, I know. I get the logic behind it. Doesn't mean I'm not bored. So, here I am sitting in on your duelling club. Because I'm bored. Always nice to see Flit—' Dora twitched slightly, her eyes darting in Flitwick's direction for an instant. '—Filius, though, he's fun.'

Charissa didn't have to say anything.

'He might have opened the conversation by insisting I call him Filius now.' Looking slightly uncomfortable, Dora added, 'He had goblin face.'

She understood completely. Flitwick could be really scary when he wanted to be. The magical presence of a sorcerer and world champion duellist with the temperament of a goblin... Come to think of it, she was a little relieved he took on a whole kindly uncle persona with his Ravenclaws all the time. It might have been really nerve-wracking just being around him if he didn't.

Unfortunately for Dora, this meeting of the club was, to be honest, extremely boring. Most of it was just various people announcing they were putting a team together for the tournament, for which there was this whole formula. The person who would be leading the team stated their intentions, a few people who'd arranged it beforehand asked to join, there was this whole bit where the second conceded leadership to the first — tradition inherited from how Gaelic warrior culture worked back in tribal times, it's complicated and irrelevant — and there were a few teams being put together, so most of the time allotted was taken up by formulaic speech after formulaic speech. In one case, one of the people joining a team _didn't_ concede, so then there was a duel for it, but that was over with soon enough, and then it was just more speeches again.

She was somewhat relieved to notice that, of the actual duelling teams at the center of the club, none of the people in the senior division seemed to be entering the tournament. A couple from the junior division were, but she didn't think that'd be a problem. As long as she arranged singles carefully, it should be fine.

Her own turn went the same as anyone else, and Neville, Tracey, Alex, and Hesper joined right away. She noticed a couple annoyed looks with her and Neville being on the same team — it was a common joke in the club that having Aurors for parents was cheating — annoyed looks that only got worse when the Gaunt twins both joined swiftly after. Despite being only third years, they were absolutely brutal in doubles already, and everyone knew it. And Charissa got them first, ha ha. For a second it looked like Tracey was going to challenge her for leadership, as she'd teased back when Charissa had first asked her, but she went quietly after a moment of hesitation. Good: she sort of liked Tracey, she didn't want to have to beat her up for no good reason.

Finally, after what felt like forever, everyone was done announcing, and they gathered around the circle for their weekly challenges. This year, the captain of the senior division team was Faolán Monroe who, well, he was okay, she guessed. She'd really liked Ingham back in second year, Monroe this year and Selwyn the last just didn't make quite as much of an impression, she guessed. But before Monroe had even entirely finished his sentence calling for challenges, Bella popped to her feet a short distance down the bench. And she spoke, somewhat to Charissa's surprise, in Brīþwn. 'I challenge Charissa Potter, conditionally.'

While Monroe stared at Bella like she were completely insane, Charissa turned a raised eyebrow at her. While it was part of the club's rules, they hardly ever did duels with conditions on winning or losing. What was she up to? Matching the language use as best she could — she'd say she was conversational in Brīþwn by now, but she was hardly fluent — Charissa said, 'And what conditions were you thinking of?'

Bella stared back at her, smile steady on her face. 'If I win, you let me in your circle for the tournament.'

All right, then. Saying "your circle" the way she had made it obvious she wasn't asking for leadership of the team — it'd be awkward getting anyone to take them seriously with a second-year at the top. 'And if you lose?'

Her smile hitched, only an instant of hesitation. 'Advocacy.'

Surrounded by a sudden storm of whispering, Charissa opened her mouth to respond, then let it fall closed again. Did she know what she was saying? English and Brīþwn had both borrowed the Latin verb _advocō_ into their vocabularies, but they'd done it under entirely different meanings. But she had to know what she was saying, she was an omniglot. In a legal context, ydvoxaþ was sort of like indentured servitude — the terms weren't interchangeable, but they were similar concepts. In previous centuries, Hogwarts students had a practice they called ydvoxaþ, which...well, she wouldn't know how to translate it. A combination master/apprentice–master/servant sort of thing, that was only quasi-obligatory. Basically, the younger student did whatever the older student asked them to do — there was almost always an age gap of a couple years — and in exchange the older acted as a personal tutor for the younger, and would stand in for them in any conflicts with other students. The younger wasn't _obligated_ to do anything asked of them: they could just refuse at any time. But then the older could just deny tutoring and protection, it worked both ways.

Once upon a time, there would be dozens of these going on in Hogwarts at any given moment. But it had gone out of fashion centuries ago — she was pretty sure the last one had been decades before _Dumbledore_ was a student. So this hadn't even been on the list of possibilities in Charissa's mind when Bella had requested conditions. What was she thinking? No, well, it was sort of obvious what she was thinking: if she won, she got in the team, and if she lost, she could just get Charissa to give her some duelling instruction, and maybe get in anyway if Charissa couldn't fill the spot, in exchange for a little humiliation. A little, because she had to know Charissa wouldn't make her do anything bad. It was win-win for Bella, she guessed.

Charissa took a quick glance at Dora — she seemed unmoved, just staring at Bella with a blank, calculating sort of expression. Good: Dora was the Lady of Bella's House, this could have been awkward if she disapproved. She took a long breath. 'How long?'

'Erm. Until summer?' Bella had a tentative look about her as she said it, as though unsure if she should be offering more. Seemed like a long time to Charissa over just one duel, but what did she know.

Before answering, she turned to Hermione, who looked more confused than anything. Probably didn't know what ydvoxaþ was, wouldn't surprise her if it hadn't come up at all in the sort of books she usually read. Oh. Oh, Hermione was going to _hate_ this. She really didn't like Bella for some reason, and this would mean she was sort of going to be around a lot. Oh well. 'Agreed.'

A moment later, they were both standing in the circle, the wards coming over them with an almost-audible snap, Monroe reciting the now long-familiar pre-duel script — altered slightly as appropriate for a duel with terms, which they hardly ever did. Watching Bella face her, Charissa found herself frowning slightly with confusion. Was she okay? She looked to be almost shaking. A bit strange, since she didn't seem nervous at all. If anything, she seemed ecstatic, smirk stretching hard enough at her lips Charissa thought it had to be almost painful. It was weird.

If she didn't know better, Charissa would almost think Bella was quivering with excitement. No, what was she saying, she _didn't_ know better; she'd only met Bella barely a year ago, and to be honest didn't know her all that well yet. For all she knew, that could be precisely accurate.

And then the start to the duel was called, and Bella instantly snapped off a nasty bludgeoning hex straight for Charissa's heart. Not a bad shot, but Charissa deflected it into the wards at her back with an easy twitch of her wrist. There was no way at all Bella stood a chance against her, she could end this duel in an instant if she wanted to. To be honest, she could kill Bella in two seconds flat, and she doubted the younger girl would be able to do a thing to stop it. But she definitely didn't want to kill her little cousin, and she didn't really feel like winning right away. Bella had to know she couldn't win either, this wasn't about trying to win: it was an audition, basically. So, instead of a shock of elemental magic or perhaps a volley of duplicated stunning charms, neither of which Bella could probably deal with, Charissa shot a succession of jinxes and hexes out one at a time, using the proper wand motions and incantations and everything.

She idly wondered if this was what it was like for her mother in their practice duels.

Bella obviously didn't have the magical resources to shield the things properly. So instead she dodged them all, which was very familiar to Charissa — she could just shrug off these sorts of spells nowadays, but once upon a time she'd had to dodge streams like this from older students incessantly at every club meeting. The idea was familiar, but the way Bella was holding herself, the way she moved, was a bit odd. Charissa and Neville had been taught to keep a wide stance, yes. Bella had her feet spread so wide she was inherently unbalanced, seeming to intentionally fall out of the way of spells rather than simply step aside, bent so far at the waist she nearly seemed to be on all fours. It was weird. In fact, after slipping under and around another hex, Bella's off hand even went all the way down to the ground, her wand hand arcing above her head then slashing down with a call of, ' _Illēnsecā_!'

Even as Charissa semi-automatically called up a shield to block the dozen narrow-edged cutting charms slicing in at her from random angles, she blinked down at her younger cousin in surprise. Who had taught her _that_? It wasn't an especially dangerous hex — unless seriously overpowered, it couldn't cut very deep at all, more a nuisance than anything — but it definitely wasn't something most people knew. Charissa actually _didn't_ know it herself, she'd just recognised the feel of the magic coming in at her as a bunch of tiny little cutting charms, underpowered ones. She could only assume Bella had been sneaking into the library at Grimmauld Place, or maybe even the old cer near Aber Wrax in Brittany. Sneaking would have been necessary, since she rather doubted anyone would have just let Bella look around on her own.

 _Somebody_ had been a naughty girl.

Well, if Bella was going to be pulling out things like this, Charissa might as well not treat her like a child. After sending a few quick jinxes off at Bella, she closed her eyes for a moment, letting her arm fill with the hot crackle of magic. _Pirá kaþarízontas, s'eména katá 'omíxli ðénete_.' Her wand, loosely pointed down and to her right, spat a steady stream of orange-yellow fire, shining so brightly it was almost blinding. The shimmering flame pooled, like glowing water pouring into an invisible bowl, collecting in an ellipsoid a metre wide.

Bella obviously knew that was bad. She shot off a painful-looking bludgeoning hex, quickly followed by a higher tier disarming charm, rather difficult for her age; Charissa just lifted her wand arm, the pool of fire following the motion. The charms were swallowed by the magical flames with two soft flashes of light, and vanished completely.

It was hard to tell over the gentle crackling of fire magic, but Charissa was pretty sure she heard Bella curse under her breath.

With a little twirl of her wand and a flex of thought, Charissa sent the fire stretching outward, expanding and curving around to flow in at Bella from the right. A snarl on her face, Bella jabbed down at the ground with a scream of, ' _Paxpéfte_!' The advance of fire was halted with a blast of icy fog, wisps of flame and steam spiraling into the air over Bella's head. She'd put an impressive bit of power into that, actually — Charissa had been able to feel the sudden chilly draft from the other side of the circle, reminding her of someone opening the front door in winter while she was sitting in the living room. Not bad at all. She was starting to wonder if Bella might actually be better than Charissa had been at that age. More powerful, at least.

The counter hadn't entirely dispelled her _pirá kaþarízontas_ , but it was enough Charissa had to pause to regain control over it again. Bella exploited the opportunity beautifully. Much as Charissa had a moment ago, she straightened, closed her eyes, drew in a long breath through her nose, smoothly raising her wand to point again at Charissa. ' _Rḗtte_!'

If Charissa hadn't had any warning, she would have lost the duel right there. Even then, the incantation was only two syllables, the only other sign of what was about to happen a shivering of blue sparks jumping across Bella's fingers the moment before. It almost wasn't enough.

Charissa ducked to the side, narrowly evading a sharp bolt of brilliant blue lightning slashing through the space her heart had been just a second ago. It passed close enough her skin tingled almost painfully, her hair shrugged. She reflexively clapped her hands over her ears, nearly dropping her wand, as the air within the circle vibrated with the noise. It was so loud she didn't even really hear it — instead she _felt_ it, an intense thrum running through her bones, rattling her head around badly enough she was sure in the next seconds she was going to vomit, it took her a moment just to get control of herself again, standing on shaky feet.

Okay. _Ow_.

Nope. No, she was _not_ fucking around now. Not even a little bit. She was done.

She didn't even look in Bella's direction. Of course, she didn't really have to. With a murmuring she couldn't even hear herself — _that_ wasn't a good sign — she cast a stunning hex, then caught it with a tight flourish before it could be released. A few quick duplications, folding it all over, then duplicating the duplicated charms a few times, until she had...she'd lost count, quite a few of them by now. She released them all in Bella's general direction, the sudden loss of energy only making it harder to remain standing.

But she must have gotten her. The duelling wards came down a few seconds later.

Charissa had hardly even caught her breath before she jumped half into the air again when arms suddenly wrapped around her. She quickly recognised the form against her, the smell of shampoo as Hermione's. Okay, then. It was a little uncomfortable bent half over with Hermione latched to her side like this, so after giving her a moment Charissa forced herself to standing straight again, turned toward Hermione a little, which was about as much movement as her equilibrium could take right now. Wow, Hermione did _not_ look good. She was shaking a bit, her mouth moving a mile a minute. Not that Charissa had any idea what she was saying — her head was filled with nothing but meaningless noise right now, which probably had something to do with why she hadn't heard Hermione sneak up on her. That was annoying.

Far as she could guess, Hermione had found watching her lover nearly be struck by lightning to be rather terrifying. Which was kind of amusing, because Charissa wasn't feeling much of anything herself at the moment. Just dizziness and annoyance with her current deafness, really.

Or not. She frowned to herself a little in sudden confusion. _Lover_ , hmm. Was that term appropriate? She didn't really know. Hermione would certainly use a different word — muggles had different terminology for these things. Whatever.

But anyway, Hermione was still talking at her and, by the look of it, getting slightly annoyed with her not responding. So Charissa just tapped at her ear with her open hand. Then frowned, looking down at her fingertips.

Huh. She wasn't a Healer, but bleeding from the ears couldn't be a good sign. By the abruptly horrified-looking expression on Hermione's face? Yeah, probably not.

A minute or so later, she was being ushered to the Hospital Wing, Hermione firmly holding onto her arm. Which she didn't particularly mind at the moment — she wasn't entirely confident she could have made it on her own, the ground kept slipping around on her. Half the way, she watched Bella, levitated unconscious a short bit away by...someone. His face was oddly blurry at the moment. At least, she thought it was a he, hard to tell. The sleeve of Bella's shirt had been cut away, revealing a spider webbing of electrical burns running nearly up to her shoulder. She would have had to seriously push her magic to channel that much. Sure, Charissa could probably do more without much difficulty, but she was older and had been doing magic longer, her body had adapted to it much more than Bella's had. The focus, the willpower needed to push herself far enough to get _burns_...

Not bad, little cousin. Not bad at all.

That was the last thought she remembered, halfway up the stairs to the second floor. She didn't even realise she'd been losing consciousness until she was woken up by Madam Pomfrey an hour or two later.

* * *

 _November 12th, 1994_

* * *

Charissa was starting to wonder if she'd overestimated her own abilities.

If anything, she thought it might be a sampling bias. She could beat the majority of the duelling club without too much difficulty. Most of the time these days she was fighting mostly sixth and seventh -years, and she still almost never lost. There was a person or two in each year she had more trouble with. In her year, Neville she had a nearly even record with, and Susan was much better than average, but not really difficult. In fifth year, Bell beat her regularly, just barely more often than not — the older girl had said more than once she was aiming to become an Auror, and even Charissa could feel she was more powerful than most any other student, soft energy washing off her in waves, so that wasn't too surprising. But mostly, everyone was rather easy. And these were people in the duelling club, she wasn't unjustified in thinking they were the best in the school. Her superlative evaluation of her own talent hadn't come out of nowhere.

Now, she wasn't so sure. For one, Bella was only a second-year, and she'd nearly beaten her. Which, sure, the only reason she'd lasted long enough to almost win was because Charissa had decided not to take her out immediately, but she still hadn't expected Bella to whip out that sort of elemental magic. November of her second year, Charissa doubted she'd been capable of anything comparable. She didn't think she'd be able to cast that same lightning spell even _now_ — she was hopeless with that particular branch of elemental magic, but still. And, now that she thought about it, the duelling club was hardly a representative sample of the school. Looking through all the names on the roster, they were almost universally from Noble Houses. There wasn't a single muggleborn on the list, and there were only a few from Common Houses. And one of those was Bell. She hadn't thought there was any silliness going on there — her mother, after all, had even gotten into the senior division team, and she was muggleborn — but now she wasn't so sure.

And, of course, that didn't include people who simply chose not to join the duelling club for whatever reason.

'Luna Lovegood challenges Charissa Potter.'

Even if there were some weird pureblood elitism going on in this club that she hadn't been aware of, Luna wouldn't have had any problem getting in. While the Lovegoods were a Common House, and not well-regarded at that, they were pureblood, and Luna's mother's mother had been born an Ollivander, a Noble House, and her mother's father had been (was?) a Blanchet, a satellite family of the Cæciné, Aquitanian nobility. Well, back when the Aquitanians had nobility, anyway, they didn't anymore. So, while it wasn't something she ever mentioned herself, and she was personally weird enough people tended to ignore it, Luna did have the credentials not to be immediately dismissed by those awful society types. Add in the fact that her aunt was currently well-known in the professional circuit, and, well.

And, waiting for the wards to come up around them, Charissa was worried. Previously, she wouldn't have been. But now she wasn't so sure. She didn't think she was as good as she used to believe. And Luna had said she'd gotten _a few lessons_ from her aunt. With the way Luna always underplayed everything, Charissa had no idea if she really had only had just a few lessons, or if it was something far more involved than that. More comparable to her own lessons with Mum, which was almost a legitimate apprenticeship, to be completely honest. She didn't know which it was, it could be either. She couldn't help this weird feeling she was about to lose. Against _Luna Lovegood_.

She didn't like it.

Luna was standing calmly at the other end of the circle, already in a textbook duelling stance. Not in the same style Charissa used, but she'd been taught enough about it to recognise it — apparently, that family of styles were all descended from one originally developed by and for the magic-using warriors of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, though obviously without a great deal of modifications over the thirty-two hundred years between then and now. It was obvious from the way she held herself: feet close together, knees and back straight, turned against Charissa at roughly a forty-five degree angle, her far arm folded behind her back, her close arm holding her wand extended slightly low, her hand hanging palm-down, wand dangling from a loose, delicate grip. Perfect, and comfortably so, as though second nature.

She would almost look dignified, if she weren't wearing bead-tasseled clothes in an eye-searing blend of bright blues and oranges, a sparkling butterfly of silver and rainbow rhinestones pinned into her hair. Weirdo.

The instant the start to the duel was called, Luna was casting. Her wand moved in tiny little flicks and swirls, wrist hardly shifting at all, hex after hex after hex sent out in Charissa's direction in a near steady stream. Charissa stepped out of the way of the first couple, deflected a few, then ducked behind a hastily-cast shield for a few more.

She growled to herself in sudden annoyance. This was ridiculous. It'd only been a few seconds, and Luna must have cast a _dozen_ hexes or so, half of which Charissa _didn't even recognise_ , the streaks of bright colour coming in at her completely unfamiliar. They weren't powerful, none of them, but they were _there_. And the worst part? _Luna hadn't even opened her mouth yet._ Charissa could do plenty of silent casting, sure, but she suspected Luna was better than she was. And she was a year older.

No, fuck this. No playing around.

Letting the shield drop, skipping out of the way of a few hexes, ' _Flamma impulsāns_ —' Luna managed to get what looked like a stunning hex in at an angle she couldn't get out of the way, but she managed to incorporate a deflection into the final downward jab of the wand movement without too much trouble, sending it into the ground at her feet. '— _assurge_.'

She faltered only slightly at the pull on her magic, watching a wall of flame a deep orange-red appear before her, extending over a metre to her left and right, the top somewhat above her head, the heat almost painful on her face. That would do. With another jab of her wand, the wall slipped forward, rising and curling like an ocean wave, towering to crash down upon Luna.

It wouldn't hurt her. _Flamma impulsāns_ , on hitting anyone, simply transferred the heat to physical force. Sort of like a very large, very powerful bludgeoning charm. So, well, it would hurt, but not _permanently_ , was what she guessed she was saying. And, being elemental magic, it was very difficult to shield against, and it spread too wide for Luna to dodge around. So, that would be it. Hopefully.

Charissa felt the rise of frigid magic licking against her skin before she even heard the incantation, setting her to cursing under her breath. ' _Saepem glaciālem_ ,' Luna's first incantation of the duel, spoken in the same calm, airy voice Luna always used, as though a huge wave of fire weren't about to crash down on her head. There was a sharp roar of elemental magics clashing, the sputtering of suffocated fire, the harsh hiss of sublimated steam, the raucous tinkling of a thousand shards of ice clattering to the ground. When the air cleared enough to see, there Luna was, still standing straight in a sea of steaming puddles and glimmering ice, seemingly unaffected.

The barely noticeable, vague sort of smile on her face just made Charissa more annoyed.

And Luna wasn't just going to wait for Charissa to try again. With a lazy flick and a muttering of ' _obvertite_ ,' much of the scattered ice around her jumped into the air, hovering in front of her, twisting in a jumbled crystalline mass. With a grimace, Charissa started up an incendiary curse, then changed her mind — while not technically against the rules, people wouldn't look on her very kindly for using magic that potentially dangerous in a little duel like this. A bludgeoning hex, then. Duplicated a few times, and overpowered as much as she could without making herself dizzy. There, that would do. She fired off her own hexes, a volley of a half-dozen charms glowing a harsh yellow-brown, even as Luna finished whatever she was doing with a casual call of, ' _Glaciālanceās fulminantēs_.'

For a short moment, Charissa stared at the descending javelins, sharp spears of glittering ice flickering all along with hints of blue-white lightning, her growing frustration temporarily banished by shock. What? Where the fuck had Luna learned _that_? Better question, **_how_**? Growling to herself, with an upward swirl of her wand, she drew up and out of herself a vortex of wind and fire, surrounding herself in an instant with motion and heat — she hadn't even bothered pausing to think of an incantation for it. Though maybe she should have: the instinctive magic was pulling at her stronger than she usually allowed in most duels, her feet and left hand going numb, black spotting her vision. But the blue-white fire was bright enough she simply closed her eyes anyway — and also hot as all hell, almost thought her hair might catch any second now — though it did make her wonder. Had she ever made fire this colour before? What exactly was it? Hmm. She heard multiple bursts of hissing steam, spears sublimated in an instant, but also the noisy clatter of ice shattering, the skittering crackle of lightning magic exhausting itself against the ground. Must have just blown a couple of them off, not that she cared either way, still got the job done.

Well, she wasn't entirely sure what this fire she'd made was, but it was pretty, and it was hot, so she might as well use it. With a wide gesture and a silent _obvertite_ , the blue-white cyclone of fire and wind around her lifted from the ground, condensing into a rapidly-spinning disc a half-metre above her head. When she opened her eyes, the entire circle, most of the room around them, was illuminated with a harsh white light, throwing flickering shadows, the sight of it almost eerie. Luna, looking toward but not directly at the source of the light, almost seemed a little worried, the absent smile from before gone. Her wand was down by her waist, twitching in little flicks, but Charissa could barely feel anything, had no idea what she was doing. But it was possible her own magic was drowning out all sense of anything else — whatever this fire was, it was taking a lot out of her, as the numbness in her extremities and the uncomfortable tingling across her skin and nearly painful heat in her wrist told.

What should she do with this stuff anyway? She couldn't just cast it out to strike Luna directly — it was hot enough it could seriously hurt her. Probably something to encircle her instead, trap her. Most elemental fire magic had some dispel effect, greater or lesser depending on exact variety, so that would probably work even—

Her wand arm jerked with a sudden force striking at the inside of her forearm, her wand tumbling from limp fingers. The magic holding together the disc above her head fell apart, tongues of blue and white spreading out into the air, quickly burning itself out with an anticlimactic whisper. It was only a second later the pain hit, a fierce, burning, blinding pain piercing through her skin and down to bone. The shiver of abrupt agony running through her set her legs to shaking, so weak she was deposited on her knees before she even realised what was happening. What the...

Frowning somewhat distantly, ignoring the tears of pain already rising in her eyes, Charissa pulled her arm away from her chest — she hadn't even realised she'd clenched it to herself — stared down at... How had _that_ happened? Three shards of deep blue ice, sharp and jagged, wide as her wrist at the base, had buried themselves in the flesh of her forearm. Rather deep, judging by the welling of blood, trailing down her skin in wide rivers to fall in a steady stream to the floor.

It hurt rather less than she would have expected. Of course, it _did_ hurt, a burning, stabbing sensation that seemed to flare with each frantic beat of her heart, but it wasn't all that bad, honestly. She'd had worse. Absently, she thought it was a little odd that ice stabbed into her felt hot, instead of cold.

How had this happened? She hadn't felt Luna doing anything significant, she hadn't noticed any—

Oh. Those little twitches in her wand at her hip. She got it. There were still shards of ice all over the place through the circle. Luna must have, carefully and subtly, transfigured a couple of them into the right shape, levitated them over to the proper angle, then flung them straight at her wand arm. Not bad, considering. Very sneaky, very efficient. Not bad at all.

She glanced up at Luna, still standing at the other end of the circle, upraised off hand holding Charissa's wand — must have summoned it. Just summoned it, she thought, less time must have passed than she'd expected, just a few seconds. Staring down at Charissa, looking slightly guilty, slightly worried.

She'd...

She'd lost. Against Luna.

 _Luna bloody Lovegood_ had disarmed her. She hadn't even noticed it happening.

She'd—

No, she thought, her teeth grinding with a sudden flare of fury.

No, she hadn't lost yet.

' _Maybe it was a mistake not to teach you this earlier_ ,' her mother had said. ' _You're having much more difficulty with it than I did, when I was even younger than you are now. Perhaps something about using a wand for even a short period of time makes applying your magic freely more difficult, I don't know. It's not something anyone has really studied. But if you work at it, I'm sure you can pull it off anyway. You certainly have the power for it. You just have to be patient._ '

And oh, Charissa could be patient when she had to be. When it was worth it.

A duel wasn't technically considered over when a contestant was disarmed. Only when they were disabled. The ambiguity came in because for most people there was no real difference between the two — wandless talents that could be effectively used in a fight were very rare.

Rare, but not nonexistent.

And Charissa had been _very_ patient.

Deep within her, she felt her magic rise with her fury at her easy defeat, her determination that she would _not_ lose, not to Luna of all people, the power pulsing in her veins a flood of energy washing away the quivering weakness, the disabling pain in her arm banished to the back of her mind.

No. She wasn't done yet.

She sprang to her feet, rising so easily, her body so unexpectedly light, she nearly overbalanced and fell right over again. She stumbled the first couple steps, but quickly recovered, pushed herself on toward Luna. Luna, whose eyes were widening even further than normal, her wand again turning to aim toward her. A quick twist of her wrist, and the familiar red light of a stunning hex exploded into being, streaking across the still steamy air between them.

This wasn't even hard to deal with. While charm deflection was taught frequently to duelling students, what wasn't often explained to them, Mum had said with a twinkle of amusement in her eyes, was that the skill was _always_ wandless. Sure, people usually used their wand as part of the physical process, but the magic itself didn't technically involve the wand at all. Charissa simply reached inside, deep inside, to the well of light and fire within — her magic always felt like fire, she had no idea why, or if it even mattered — took a portion of her power in a clumsy grip, drew it out and up. Turned it with a flex of will into something hard and slick, something that could not be touched, that would repel every attempt to pierce or break. She laid it into the skin of her left hand — usually she'd use her right, but that was probably a bad idea at the moment. As the red light approached, she moved her hand into its path, and when the tingling, ephemeral energy of the charm met the slick hardness hidden in her hand, pushed sideways and down, the hex splashing into the stone behind her.

The shocked gasps from their audience reminded her they weren't alone. Whoops. Mum had told her to keep the fact she could use magic wandlessly at all as secret as possible — people tended to be suspicious of people who could do this sort of thing, or anything at all most couldn't. Since it was already publicly known she was a Parselmouth it was likely to be _worse_ , people speculating about her using dark rituals or whatever to augment her abilities and the like. Oh, well. Nothing she could do about it now.

Somehow, Luna's eyes had widened even further, bulging to the point they almost looked like they were about to pop out of her skull. As Charissa rapidly closed in — at the moment she couldn't do anything at range without a wand, unfortunately — Luna tossed Charissa's wand behind her, throwing it beyond the wards. Charissa winced at the sound of her custom-made duelling wand clattering against the floor, but no time for that. She was within a few metres now, and Luna was desperately casting again. Conjured ropes burst into existence, lancing out to meet Charissa.

Nice try, Luna, but no. This one was harder, but not impossible — Mum had said the single most important spell to learn to do wandlessly was a general-use dispel, so it'd been the first she'd worked on. She again reached for the fire within, drew it out, moulded it into the most familiar shape she knew, forced the form into skin and clothes from head to toe. Again wishing to herself she could cast her magic beyond her own body, but beggars and choosers and all that. She pushed as much power into it as she could spare at the moment, willing herself detached from all external magic, untouchable.

When the conjured ropes touched her, they immediately set to disintegrating, the transfiguration magic giving them form smoothly torn apart by the generalised dispel living within her.

Before Luna could cast anything else, Charissa reached her, grasped for her wand. Luna twisted her wrist out of the way, started another stunning hex, but Charissa again grabbed for her wand, stepping closer, forcing Luna to abandon the spell, stumble away. Charissa stepped after her, grabbing for the wand, but couldn't get it, Luna too fast and slippery for Charissa to grab it with only her left hand. So, gritting her teeth, she again reached for the fire within, drawing it up in the form of a bludgeoning jinx, drawing it up through her right arm. The wounds in her forearm seared with renewed pain when magic flowed through them, but she bit down on her lip, ignored it. Even as she made another grab for Luna's wand with her left, she raised her right in a flash, moving in a jab at the inside of Luna's forearm — appropriate, she thought.

The physical hit itself was a bit awkward: her fingers didn't seem to be responding to her at all, so her hand hit Luna's arm all limp and useless. But it was enough to discharge the charm, which was all she'd needed. The bludgeoning jinx struck Luna's forearm, the impact enough to force her fingers snapping open, sending the wand flying away, clattering outside of the wards. Erm. Whoops? She'd kind of wanted that...

Oh, well. Luna had recoiled from the hit, temporarily distracted with clutching at her bruised forearm. She could use that. Charissa lunged forward, swiftly grabbing Luna's conveniently adjacent wrists with her left hand, one then the other, then, slipping one foot behind Luna's ankles, forced the both of them crashing to the floor.

In hardly a moment, Charissa had Luna pinned, straddling her hips, one hand holding both her wrists against the floor over her head. Charissa took a long moment to get control over her breathing again — she hadn't actually had to run or move all that much at all, but she felt strangely out of breath — her position of advantage easily overpowering Luna's continued struggling. Really, if anything, she found herself rather enjoying the way Luna was squirming under her, didn't mind it even a little...

Even as she had the thought, Luna abruptly stopped fighting, silvery eyes turning aside as she let out a little huff. Charissa couldn't help a little smirk at that — at a guess, her own aura had just gone a bit green. Silly empath.

Once she thought she could talk without sounding weak and shaky, Charissa said, 'Do I win?'

'This is cheating, you know.' Luna sounded perfectly airy and casual saying it, like they were having just another discussion of their Runes homework in the library.

'No, it's not. Check the rules.'

'It's unfair, I mean. We can't all have a wandless magic prodigy for a mother.'

Okay. This stalling was getting annoying. Her arm was really starting to hurt again, she'd rather be having that getting looked at than bantering. She needed a sticking charm. She'd never cast that wandlessly, but how many times had she cast it before, really. Shouldn't be hard at all. She again reached deep within, pulled her power forward, forced it into a semblance of a sticking charm. Even without casting it, she knew it didn't feel right. She frowned in concentration, pummelled at the magic in her grip, beating and twisting it into the proper shape. There, that felt right, or at least close enough. She forced the charm up through her left arm, projected it into Luna's wrists, gluing them to the floor beneath. She lifted her hand, and Luna's wrists stayed still, stuck. Good.

She leaned back a bit, moved her left hand to float a few inches above Luna's chest. Again, she reached for the magic deep inside, but this time didn't shape it at all. She simply drew it forward, forced it into the surface of her skin. She wasn't looking, meeting Luna's eyes instead, but she heard the crackle and hiss of fire, exactly what she'd been hoping for. Good, that _had_ to look intimidating. 'Do I win?'

A shiver of fear crossing Luna's normally blank face — that was weird — she said, 'Yes, yes, fine, you win.' The usual distant, dreamy tone was off her voice as well, the slightest hint of panic under the surface. Huh. 'You can get off now.'

So Charissa did, rolling off Luna even as she let the flames on her hand fade away. A couple seconds later, the wards dropped, and she saw Flitwick making his way for her, his wand already out. Before she could even say a word, he was on his knees next to her, off hand tightly clenched around her right wrist, healing charms flowing off his lips one after the other.

It took her a moment to realise the room was eerily quiet. She looked up, saw everyone was staring down at her — some whispering to each other, but mostly just staring. They were looking at her really weird. Like they'd seen...well, she didn't know exactly. She hadn't accidentally spoken Parseltongue at any point, had she? She didn't think she had...

'What...?' But she didn't finish the question to Flitwick, not really sure what she was going to ask.

But he talked anyway. Wand still poking at the already mostly-healed holes in her forearm, he said in a low, harsh, very goblin-like tone, ' _Don't do anything that foolish again_. You get a wound this deep in a duel, either find some way to stop the bleeding or _swallow your pride and yield._ '

She blinked for a moment, too surprised to do much else. He sounded almost... Well, it was that blend of concerned and angry she only really heard from her parents, when she'd done something they thought was stupidly dangerous. She wasn't sure how to feel about getting the same tone from Professor Flitwick. It was uncomfortable. 'Ah. Sorry, Professor, but I didn't think it was that bad.'

' _That bad_ ,' he snarled under his breath. 'When you channelled that spell through it — bludgeoning jinx, yes? — you partially melted the ice still stuck in you. _Very_ foolish. You've lost more blood than was really wise. It was worse than you think.'

Oh. Well. She hadn't really noticed. It hadn't seemed that bad to her at all — but then again, after the internal trauma she'd gotten from that narrow miss last week, it was possible her own judgement of the signals from her body were skewed. She'd felt mostly fine, honestly. It'd hurt, sure, but she hadn't felt dizzy or anything at all. Shouldn't that happen with blood loss? Whatever. She wasn't sure what else to say, so she just apologised again.

Oh, wait. 'Luna.' She glanced around to find the other girl a few steps away, looking faintly disgruntled. Well, that was too bad. But, to be completely fair, Luna had done far, far better than she would have expected a couple weeks ago, and was probably more skilled than most other prospects she had, as mildly surprising as that was. So she didn't even hesitate before saying, 'You're in, if you still want it.'

A trace of a smile pulled at her lips, and she nodded. Then she wandered off, humming tunelessly to herself.

Such a weirdo.

A couple minutes later, Flitwick had finished his healing work on her arm — though he did sternly warn her to go to Pomfrey for a blood replenishing potion if she found herself weak or dizzy — she'd recovered her wand, and was sitting at the lower tier of benches, absently watching the duel after hers. Not really paying attention, to be honest. She'd noticed everyone had subtly shifted away from her when she'd sat down, kept shooting her occasional wary looks. It was... It was sort of bothering her. She couldn't help the feeling she'd missed something. Something that was making practically everyone in the room scared of her.

She couldn't forget the terrified look that had crossed Luna's face, something she'd never seen there before, somehow just wrong, like it didn't belong.

Everyone except Bella, anyway, but she was starting to think Bella was as different as Charissa herself was, if not in quite the same way. Just as the next duel was starting up, Bella squeezed over into the seat right next to her, plopping down with a giddy, 'That was _bloody brilliant_! How did you do that wandless shite? Can you teach me?'

'Ah.' She blinked to herself in silence for a moment, pulling herself away from her thoughts with more effort than usual. 'Ah, sure. It might be hard. My mum says after you start using a wand, you get used to doing magic that way, and you sort of have to re-train your instincts, if that makes sense. But sure.' Not that Charissa had actually taught Bella anything at all yet — Dora had suggested they take a grace period of two weeks before actually starting their ydvoxaþ — but she had been making a list of things that might be useful, and that weren't usually covered in class, just absently in her spare time. She could add that no problem. It'd mostly start with meditation Bella would do on her own anyway. Learning to touch her magic without any kind of aide to simplify the process hadn't been quick or easy. And she still could only perform her extremely limited library of wandless spells on objects outside herself through skin contact alone, which she hadn't realised until just minutes ago was _extremely frustrating_.

'Awesome.' Charissa raised an eyebrow at Bella's once again distinctly muggle-ish vocabulary, but didn't say anything about it. 'And forget these sissies, I thought that fire was wicked.'

She frowned, turning to look at Bella. Again, Bella seemed almost impossibly excited, wide grin splitting her head and practically vibrating in place. 'Wait. That fire at the end was what has everyone staring at me?'

Bella met her frown with a somewhat confused look. 'Well, yeah.'

'Was there something weird about it? I was watching Luna, I didn't see.'

'Oh, well. Sort of assumed you did it on purpose.' Bella shrugged, then started kicking her feet in the air, looking for all the world like a child her age — for probably the first time Charissa had ever seen. 'I thought it was great, but I guess it was a little weird. You basically set your whole hand on fire without hurting yourself, which was _awesome_ , I love magic like that. I can do something similar with lightning if I'm really careful, but if I lose focus I burn myself. But the fire wasn't normal-looking fire. It was dark like, all blue and purple and black. It was wicked.'

'Wait, _what_?' Elemental magic was an entirely separate category from white or black magic, but there were a few cases they overlapped, where magic was both elemental _and_ white, or elemental _and_ black. Apparently, there were even spells that were both white and black _at the same time_ , but Mum had said humans had trouble casting them. But that sounded like a form of elemental black magic Mum had shown her once, she vaguely recalled. It was endothermic, Mum had said, powerfully so — it destroyed charms and transfigurations and enchantments by simply sucking all the power out of them, drew warmth out of people so quickly they got frostbite, enough it could easily turn necrotic with enough exposure. From what she remembered, anyway, she didn't know how to cast it. She couldn't even remember what it was called.

Sounding slightly confused, Bella said, 'That's what I saw, anyway.'

'But...' She broke off, absently rubbing at her forehead. 'But that sounds like black elemental magic.'

Bella shrugged. 'And?' Just the fact she could be that blasé about black magic at her age, yeah, she was almost certainly sneaking books she probably shouldn't be reading. Not that Charissa could talk, she guessed.

'But I didn't even do it on purpose! It didn't feel like I was casting black magic, either. Wasn't feeling much of anything at the time, to be honest.'

With a snort, Bella said, 'Yeah, I don't believe that for a second.'

She frowned down at the younger girl, pausing a moment to fight off the flare of annoyance. 'What do you mean?'

'I was watching. You looked bloody _furious_ when Lovegood disarmed you.' Well, okay, she couldn't argue with that, but... 'And then you were enjoying having her under you quite a bit. Not that I blame you there — she is rather adorable in a peculiar way.' Charissa was suddenly glad Hermione had decided not to come again; she had no idea how she might have reacted to that if it had really been so obvious, but it certainly would have been awkward. 'And then you seemed a bit frustrated that she was refusing to yield. I'm not an expert, but that seems to me like black, white, then black again. The second could be black too, I guess, depending on what exactly was going on in your head. But it's not that surprising your magic came out black. It slips into elemental magic pretty easy, I've found.'

'Well.' She wasn't sure she agreed. She hadn't technically been casting elemental magic at all, just pulling her magic out unmodified, letting it take whatever form it shifted to naturally. Though she guessed it was possible free magic could be contaminated by any passing black or white emotion going on extremely easily, theoretically, even easier than elemental magic — Charissa hadn't ever noticed the "slippage" Bella was talking about herself, but she'd admit she didn't know everything. She guessed that explained it. 'Alright, then.'

Not that she was exactly pleased with this explanation. She had a nasty feeling this was going to get her in the paper again — blasted society pages never had _anything_ better to talk about, cursed parasites. Dad was going to be so very annoyed with her.

Again.

Some minutes later, the club meeting was called to an end. Which was good, since she was actually rather tired. Probably something to do with getting into a duel where she'd had to use both elemental _and_ wandless magic, and had been injured and apparently lost a significant amount of blood — she could see how that might be a little tiring. But she was only a few steps down the corridor when she heard someone calling her name. Holding back a sigh, she turned toward the source of the voice, then froze, blinking in shock.

It was Fleur Delacour, the French–Aquitanian Champion. The Champion who also happened to be a caryd, which she'd admit was somewhat distracting, distracting enough it was probably deadening her surprise somewhat. Almost angelic face of smooth curves, rosy lips, bright amber eyes. Straight, silvery hair drawn into a gleaming braid draped over her shoulder. Not in her school's blue silks, but instead surprisingly muggle-style skirt and blouse, tinted deeper purples and reds, the contrast sharp with her colouring. Yes. Very distracting.

Somewhat absently, she remembered Hermione, after speechlessly watching Delacour walk by once, going on a slightly breathless rant about how hair that white of a blonde and eyes that clear a yellowish amber existing in the same person was extremely unlikely, from a genetic standpoint. Charissa had had to remind her Delacour wasn't even human and, of course, this wasn't what the caryd _actually looked like_. It was an illusion, one of such complex perfection it was even tactile — and if _that_ wasn't an interesting thought — but still an illusion. Her true form Charissa was sure she would find far less pleasing. But, to be completely honest, she didn't particularly care at the moment. And she knew it was partially Fae magic that made her not care. She could almost taste it, a fragrant, seductive cloud surrounding the older girl, prickling at Charissa's skin.

She knew it was influencing her. Not a lot, but not _nothing_. Only a slight push. She wasn't so hopeless with occlumency she couldn't tell that much — since she knew Augí could protect her from harmful intrusions just fine, she hadn't bothered practising much herself. But, really, she didn't care. She _couldn't_ care. Especially with how tired she was right now, the caryd's influence felt too light, and warm, and soft, she just couldn't summon the emotional energy right now. She knew she'd probably be horrified with herself later, but she thought Delacour could probably do whatever she wanted to her right now and Charissa wouldn't even think to stop her.

Come to think of it, this sort of thought was probably _exactly_ why some people really didn't like carīdwð.

But anyway, she should probably be responding. 'Yes, Miss Delacour?' Hey, her voice came out completely normal. Sort of impressed with herself at that. She'd been worried it might sound...not entirely sure what like, but not normal, anyway.

It really didn't make her current concentration issues any better when Delacour's lips pulled into a small, but warm, smile. Yes, very distracting. If she had to guess, probably because Charissa had responded with the same politeness she'd give anyone she didn't know — she somehow doubted Delacour had gotten a lot of that from Britons. 'If this isn't too bad a time, I need to speak with you for a moment. Family business,' she added, before Charissa could wonder.

Not that that really explained anything. House Potter did do a fair amount of business in both France and Aquitania, but she wasn't aware of any connections to the Çyr. Or any connections to any carīdwð anywhere, for that matter. It was entirely possible Delacour was intending to start something with her family, but...she couldn't imagine what, or why she'd picked them, of all British families. Or why she'd be the one chosen to speak for her Clan, or why she'd pick Charissa to speak to. It made very little sense, very confusing.

Possibly out of curiosity, possibly because of the soothing magic enfolding her, or possibly, to evaluate her own moral character with perfect honesty for a moment here, just because she was pretty, Charissa decided to throw her doubts aside for the moment, and just agreed. A moment later she'd brushed her friends off, and was following the caryd away.

Ha. She couldn't even count the number of cautionary tales she'd heard or heard of that started exactly like this. That was kind of funny. The fact she found it funny was likely problematic, but she didn't really care at the moment.

They came to one of the sitting rooms dotted around the castle, filled with plush chairs and couches in dark colours, tapestries displaying a marked fusion of Slytherin and Hufflepuff motifs — likely because of where they were in the castle right now, she guessed — a fireplace at one end crackling merrily. Gliding across the floor with almost supernatural grace...actually, that might just be magic, come to think of it...Delacour moved to one of a pair of armchairs just in front of the fire. She gently came down to sitting, legs crossed at the knee, hands folded in her lap, looking far too delicate and feminine for the reality that she wasn't even technically female at all, and certainly wasn't anything close to delicate.

Charissa shook her head — trying to maintain her awareness of what she knew was true against what her eyes were telling her she was looking at was starting to give her a headache. With a moment to gather herself, she took the other seat, trying to focus, to not get too distracted by the curve of Delacour's lips, the faint smell of pine needles and wildflowers she just noticed seemed to be following the caryd around, the long stretch of smooth, unbroken skin visible from just above her ankle to just above her knee...

Charissa shook her head again, turning to blink at the nearby flames, bathing her in dry, gentle heat. Concentrate. She could do that.

When she turned back it was to see Delacour's smile had widened slightly, coppery eyes bright with what she assumed had to be amusement. 'Now, I know you're not an idiot, Charissa — do you mind if I call you Charissa?'

It took a moment for her to summon movement to her numb lips, push air through her throat she suddenly found drier than she thought it'd been a moment ago. When had that happened? It was not fair. The caryd's voice was just far too perfect, all soft and silken smooth, a touch of a fascinating, exotic accent she couldn't quite place, a trace of song in how she held the longer vowels. So, _so_ not fair. And very distracting. Concentrate, come on, not that hard. 'Ah, sure, I don't mind.' Like she was going to say anything else...

'Thank you.' Then, abruptly, the smile vanished. Not to be replaced with anything harsh — simply blank, absent. 'I need to know your faction.'

'My...' Charissa blinked, resisting the urge to give the caryd a confused frown. 'My faction?'

'Yes. I walk with the wind. Who do you walk with?' When Charissa didn't answer right away, she said, 'It is not that hard of a question, Charissa. And it is not information your masters would have forbid you reveal. Surely you can see it is something I would need to know — for my own protection, if nothing else.'

Okay. She didn't bother trying to hold back her frown this time. She was confused enough the haze of... Well, she'd consider using a more politic term, but this was her own head, no point to it, really. Even the haze of lust had diminished somewhat. 'My _masters_? What are you _talking_ about?'

Now Delacour was starting to look unsure, her soft face creasing slightly with faint confusion. 'I am simply asking which of the Thirty Sacred Clans you offered your eternal service to. I can eliminate a few logically, but that still leaves—'

'Okay. Two questions.' Delacour raised an eyebrow at that, but she waited. 'What are the Thirty Sacred Clans? And what the _bloody fuck_ do you mean _eternal service_?' Exaggerating a bit how offensive she found the suggestion, yes. But it made the point.

For long seconds, Delacour just stared at her, face blank again. Then she said, sounding distinctly surprised, 'You mean you don't know.'

And that explained fuck all. 'Don't know _what_?'

'About this.' Delacour lifted one, long-fingered hand, and pointed at Charissa's chest with a sharp gesture. Charissa felt a charm of some kind wash over her — she couldn't say exactly what kind, but it definitely was one — an odd sensation across the center of her chest of smoothness, of heat, left lingering behind. Frowning a little, she turned down to look at herself.

For a disorienting moment, all thoughts ceased, every trace of caryd influence over her mind temporarily obliterated. What... What the bloody fuck _was_ that? She pulled the neck of her shirt down and out a little, getting a better look at the shape revealed on her chest. A soft blue light, centered directly over her heart, taking the form of a hand. A left hand, thumb curving along the top of her breast, fingers stretching across her upper chest to her clavicles. The light was not atop her skin, but under it, a gentle glow seeping out from beneath the surface, cool and unwavering. 'What... What is it?'

When Delacour spoke, her voice held more than a trace of almost worshipful reverence, a peculiar sense that she was describing something of extreme cultural importance she'd never actually seen before. 'That is the Mark of the Ancients. It is a sign of the Blessing of the Thirty Sacred Clans, given by undying royalty to a mortal they favour, in exchange for unending loyalty. This was not explained to you?'

'No! I didn't even know I had it!' Charissa let her shirt fall against her skin again as Delacour's charm faded, the light dimming down to nothing. Or perhaps still there, but in a medium she couldn't see. She took a long breath, rubbing at her eyes with one hand, trying to make sense of this. She'd probably be panicking more, but she suspected she had caryd magic to thank for that. Then she had another suspicion, one that set her to sitting straight in her chair again, snapping up from where she'd slumped over herself. 'Can you tell how long I've had it?'

Delacour watched her for a moment, eyes narrowed slightly, looking at something invisible, inexplicable — Charissa might have been unnerved, if she hadn't long ago gotten used to Luna. 'No. Normally, I'd be able to make a more accurate guess, but I've never met a Blessed before, myself.' Well, turns out that impression Charissa had had a moment ago was correct. 'It is completely integrated with your body and mind already, which should take a few months, at least.'

That's what she'd thought. Earlier this year, she'd learned she had a Faetouch, one she hadn't had when she'd been younger — Mum had said she would have noticed it at some point, that it must have been acquired. Well, now she had an explanation for that. Not that she knew exactly what this did, but she had a whole list of questions, and she might as well start from the top. 'Okay. What are the Thirty Sacred Clans?'

This time, Delacour looked slightly annoyed with the question, as though Charissa should know that already, and she should stop being so stupid. 'There are thirty different known races of immortal beings. Each is ruled by a single holy family. They are the Thirty. Only a member of one of the Thirty can give the Blessing.'

Oh. Okay. The ruling clans of the twenty-eight species of Elder Fae. She knew about that. She hadn't heard words like "holy" or "sacred" being applied to them, but fine. Only, 'I thought there were twenty-eight.'

Delacour gave a soft sigh, slightly shook her head. 'They were once Twenty-Eight, yes. Now they are Thirty.'

...Okay? Had they discovered more kinds of Elder Fae out there somewhere and just never told the poor, lowly humans? Whatever, didn't matter. 'And just what am I doing with this? Why—'

She broke off as Delacour sprung to her feet, a wave of undirected magic crashing over Charissa, hotter and drier than the air from the hearth next to her, feeling a bit jumbled and confused. The caryd snarled, 'I don't know!' as she stood, but Charissa was hardly listening. The release of energy had her sinking further into her chair, knees weak and shaky even sitting, feeling impossibly warm, oddly tense and relaxed, at the same time trapped somewhere between awe, terror, and desire — which, yes, was very confusing. Apparently Lesser Fae, even seventeen-year-old ones, were still ludicrously powerful. She'd known they were on the average more powerful than human mages, of course, but it was still unnerving to feel it in person.

Come to think of it, was Delacour even seventeen? Carīdwð did live longer — not by a lot, she didn't think, only about a couple decades — but they matured at more or less the same age humans did. So it was possible Delacour was the same age as her human peers, but she wasn't sure exactly what carīdwð who mixed with humans did, traditionally. Hmm.

Delacour started pacing, a few steps away from the hearth, spinning on her heel, skirt and hair whirling about her, back to the very edge of the fire and around again, back and forth almost nauseatingly fast. The pulse of magic before still leaving her unsettled, shocked out of her own mood, Charissa just watched, feeling oddly soft and detached...which probably wasn't good, Delacour's influence must be getting to her or something. 'This entire situation is completely _unthinkable_! What purpose could there _possibly be_ in giving the Blessing to someone and _not telling them_? And to a _human_! It's not done! I _don't understand_.' Delacour stopped suddenly, a few steps away with her back to Charissa. She planted her hands on her hips, shoulders softly rising and falling with a long sigh. 'I guess living for tens of thousands of years really can make you go a little nuts.'

Charissa found herself biting her lip. Delacour was taking this rather hard. She didn't really understand what was going on — which _should_ be bothering her, but she felt oddly detached from the problem, which was probably a bad sign — but the caryd sounded so...lost. Almost devastated. It was especially weird because it'd just come suddenly out of nowhere, and with an involuntary demonstration of just how ridiculously powerful Delacour was. But, then, they were talking about Elder Fae here: they were so far beyond Charissa she didn't think the leg up Delacour had really made much of a difference.

And she felt her stomach filling with a distracting, twitching indecision. People in distress had always made her oddly uncomfortable. She never knew what to do. It especially didn't help she barely knew Delacour at all. She had no idea if there was anything she could possibly do to...what, comfort her? Yeah, sure. She had no idea if it would be well-received at all. Though...Delacour had pushed almost immediately to a first-name basis, all smiles and sunshine, and had answered those couple questions she'd had without too much impatience. Maybe she wouldn't mind. So should she...do that?

 _Why do I even care?_ The thought was almost immediately brushed away, gently floating on a river of softness and light.

Not that she really knew how to comfort people very well. To be honest, she'd only very rarely felt like she'd needed it herself, and only her mother had ever had much success giving it to her. And she didn't think she had a great record doing the comforting. She mostly just tried to convince people there wasn't anything to be all messed up about — usually, there wasn't, people were stupid — which was extremely hit and miss. Other people's emotions were something she'd never been great at handling, and she hadn't exactly had any epiphanies about it the last few years.

She stopped thinking for a moment, just stared at Delacour, back still turned to her and face tilted a bit toward the ceiling, gently breathing. Somewhat despite herself, Charissa's eyes trailed along the line of her neck, the curve of her hip, her legs up as far as she could see...

Maybe...

Well, carīdwð _were_ rather affectionate beings, weren't they? There was, after all, a reason they defaulted to that group marriage thing they did, even though, as far as any humans knew, it wasn't strictly necessary to involve that many for reproductive purposes. And, even if it didn't do anything for her personally, sometimes even just made her annoyed, she knew physical affection, things like hugs and such, were one thing people did in this situation. So, maybe she could just—

Charissa blinked, frowning to herself a little. She shifted forward again, trying to get to her feet, then stopped straining after only a second. She couldn't move. 'Er...'

'Sorry about that.' She glanced over to Delacour to see she was looking over her shoulder, seeming vaguely uncomfortable. 'I have no idea why you weren't told you were Blessed, but whoever did it must have a reason. I'm not left with a lot of choice. I'm not foolish enough to get one of the Ancients annoyed with me when I can easily avoid it.'

Apparently that flash of magic before _hadn't_ been undirected. Even against the distracted fog in her head, Charissa only needed a second to figure it out. 'You're erasing my memory, aren't you.' She wanted to be doing something to fight that, she hated the idea of someone messing with her head, but...what exactly could she do about it? With how she'd fallen so deep into the caryd's seductive influence without even realising it, she doubted she'd be able to summon the concentration to even _attempt_ breaking whatever charm was binding her with her clumsy wandless magic. And even if she was free, wand in hand, not exhausted at all but at her very best, she honestly doubted she'd be able to stop Delacour from doing whatever she wanted anyway. She was too powerful. The thought was somewhat mortifying, that she'd been beaten so completely without even realising it was happening, but the light and warmth flooding her mind washed the feeling away before it could really take hold.

Delacour was standing right in front of her now, an oddly sad smile pulling at her lips. 'You'll get the memory back eventually. I don't think I could remove it if I wanted to, just cover it up with something else. It won't last. So, I just want to say...' Coppery eyes flicked to the side for a moment, teeth playing at her lip. 'This isn't the way I like to do things. I think you understand — humans don't think in such terms, but you're not much off from an _iyumē_ yourself. I don't like this, playing in people's heads, sneaking around. I'll make a showing of myself with fire and blood, face to face. Honest like.' She gave a helpless shrug. 'Not like this.

'But, I can make it as pleasant as possible, at least. Maybe when you remember, you'll know enough to understand.' And then Delacour slipped closer, very close, the slightest niggling of anxiety rising at the back of Charissa's head. She didn't stop, left knee lifting slightly, and...coming down to the chair, sliding against Charissa's right leg all the way up to her hip as Delacour leaned nearer and nearer. Charissa's heart jumped hard into her throat, and she could only stare in blank shock as Delacour shifted her weight over, her right knee lifting now, sliding up along Charissa's left leg, Delacour softly settling on her thighs, cool fingers, soft and gentle, trailing along her shoulder, her neck.

Erm...

A warm, bittersweet smile on her face, Delacour said, hardly above a whisper, 'I did say I'm going to _cover it up_ with something didn't I? I did say I'll make it _as pleasant as possible_ , didn't I?' Delacour's left hand lifted away, the fingers of her right curling around the back of Charissa's neck, sliding into her hair. While Charissa was still struggling to find her voice — not that she had any clue what to say, the tingling heat running all through her body, her breath harsh in her throat, her blood loud in her ears, softness and warmth pressing into her from above, all seemed more important than speech — Delacour leaned further in, her head slipping over to the right of Charissa's. A smooth cheek slipped against hers, loose strands of hair tickling at her face, hot breath at her ear making it very, _very_ hard to think straight.

This was...

'Not that I even mind,' Delacour hissed an inch from her ear, sending a shudder through Charissa's spine. 'You have _fire_ inside, burning hot. Hotter than any human I've met, certainly.' She let out a low chuckle, the vibration passing through where their skin met, ringing in Charissa's head and chest. 'Because of what we discussed previously, I imagine.'

Delacour's right hand slipped out of Charissa's hair, and she contorted slightly on top of her a moment — and if _that_ wasn't interesting. There was a slight ruffling sound as Delacour moved, then a shuffling flop of cloth hitting floor, and again cool fingers slipped into her hair, others trailing down her arm, goosebumps rising with every inch as Charissa hopelessly tried to process what the fuck was going on.

Because. Well.

She was supposed to be annoyed. _Annoyed_ was a light word, really. Delacour was going to be messing with her mind. In fact, it was possible this was _how_ she was going to mess with her mind — she didn't know how Fae magic worked, it was possible. That was bad.

But she felt so...

Charissa couldn't focus on it. The fact she was supposed to be angry. It was washed away by the heat without and within, every wet brush of trailing breath, every soft touch against her skin. It seemed irrelevant by comparison.

It didn't at all help that she was pretty sure Delacour had just lost her blouse. That thought was just...

Distracting. Very, very distracting.

Delacour's fingers came to just above her wrist, lifted her arm from the chair at her side. Oh. She was allowed to move now. Okay. Both arms were obeying her now, and Delacour let go immediately, the suggestion made. Order? Whatever, the difference didn't seem to matter right now. Hesitant with confusion and disbelief, Charissa wrapped both arms around the caryd on her lap, one low over her hips, the other higher, fingers trailing up to her shoulder blade, some sort of smooth fabric slipping against her skin. Delacour moved, face turning into her neck, Charissa could almost feel the smile — smirk? — in her lips. And then—

Oh. Okay, then.

Was this really happening? It just felt so surreal. Far too dreamlike to be credible, surrounded as she was with unnatural warmth, gently pressing in from all sides, tickling not just her skin but her magic, her thoughts tugged out of line again and again, very distracting. That it was an older girl, a _bloody Fae_ , straddling her thighs, fingers buried deep in her hair, breath pushing lightly at her arms, laying a light kiss at the top of her neck with hot, soft lips, a thrill running through her so sharp she let out a gasp she hadn't realised she'd been holding.

This was so insane. Just...

Ah, hell. No point in trying to keep her head. She might as well enjoy it.

Charissa let her head fall to the side, tightening her arms around Delacour, pulling her in closer. After the slightest sigh of amusement, Delacour again brought her mouth to her neck, and Charissa couldn't help a shiver as Delacour's lips were noticeably parted this time, breath hot and wet through the slightest window. Charissa drew down, fingers searching for the hem of whatever this thing she was wearing was, letting out a hiss that might or might not have been Parseltongue, she wasn't paying attention, as both Delacour's hands moved, her right slipping deeper into Charissa's hair, fingernails clenching light against the back of her head, her left slipping down, under Charissa's arm, wrapping around to her upper back, as her mouth opened further against Charissa's neck, and she was suddenly dizzy with heat, her breath catching at the ghosting sensation of tongue and teeth, Delacour rocking slightly forward against her in a motion that instantly filled Charissa with clenched fire, she had to _move_.

The chair was deep enough, she pulled both of her legs up, pushing at the top of Delacour's thighs, forcing her weight forward, then dropped the left again, trying to wedge her knee under Delacour's foot. Delacour's face turned somewhat away, a high, nasally giggle bubbling up against her, and she shifted to her left a little, Charissa felt her leg slipping up out of the way, so she slid her own against the chair, her hands both trailing down for—

Oh, there that stupid hem was, fuck. She let her fingers drift further, low down Delacour's hips, pulled the soft fabric of Delacour's skirt up a bit, folding over and pulling again, and then Delacour's leg was coming down again, slipping between hers, Charissa curled her own back around, clenching in, and Delacour's head pulled around again, cool air hitting her neck even as Delacour's lips fell against her own, stinging cold to soothing warmth, the both forcing out a high moan Charissa didn't even realise was coming until it was already there.

She absently wondered just how far Delacour was planning on letting her go.

Her pulse was hard in her ears, a pressure making her almost dizzy with heat and motion, and Delacour was sliding deeper against her, her left hand slipping under the hem of whatever this thing was, the skin of Delacour's lower back silken and flawless and _hot_ , her right sliding down, then under the bottom of her skirt, already forced halfway up her thigh by Charissa's, trailing back up skin so smooth and soft it _hurt_ , fingers curling around toward the back, Delacour's hand at the back of her head had tightened, holding her hard against her, soft lips and spicy-sweet breath and slick tongue and stinging teeth, so smooth and confident she felt childish and clumsy, and Charissa's own fingers counting vertebrae at her back pulling her, squeezing her in, flush, but not so Delacour wasn't still moving, with every thick breath, spine under her fingers almost serpentine, Charissa's breath had turned harshly sibilant with it but Delacour didn't seem to mind what was almost definitely involuntary Parseltongue, and Charissa's fingers wrapping around at the inside-back of the top of Delacour's thigh had abruptly reached silk, and the only even half-coherent thought in her head right now was if she should try pushing her luck, it didn't seem likely Delacour would be setting her on fire any time soon, but who knew with carīdwð, honestly, maybe, and

Delacour's mouth broke from hers with a slightly breathless gasp, and she leaned some inches away, her hands moving to Charissa's shoulders. For a moment they were still, or at least mostly still, both catching their breath. Charissa opened her eyes again — she hadn't been paying attention to her eyes the last couple minutes — flicked down to see an oddly surprised-looking face above her pale, unobscured upper chest, the article she hadn't actually seen until just now a thin, satiny chemise pushed above her hips from Charissa's arm up her back.

Charissa was temporarily distracted again when she noticed the thinnest lines of muscle over Delacour's stomach. Hmm...

Her voice still slightly breathless, Delacour said, 'Well, I do have to go.' She leaned back somewhat, which was rather, ah, _interesting_ , considering just exactly how their legs were tangled at the moment. She threw her shoulders back, extending her hands behind her; with a fluttering sense of freely drawn magic, the blouse she'd lost suddenly appeared, sliding smoothly up her arms. Delacour slowly started buttoning up the front, giving Charissa a slightly crooked smile.

Oh. They were done, then. Okay. She fought down the flash of annoyed disappointment rising against the cloud of caryd magic lingering in her head, forced her voice level. 'I'm guessing you have family waiting for you, out in the valley.'

Her smile widened slightly, warm and soft. 'Half the clan is here already — which your Ministry is not happy about, I hear.' Charissa had to let out a derisive snort at that, the sound sending Delacour's smile straight into a grin. 'Really, Lydie and Laia get annoyed with me if I come back too late.'

'Lydie and Laia?' How alliterative.

Delacour's fingers paused for a moment on the last button, brow creasing slightly. 'In English, you say _betrothed_ , I think. Not quite the same thing, but close.'

For a second, Charissa wondered what exactly she could mean by that. Carīdwð were generally said to have "group marriages", yes, but they didn't actually _marry_ — it wasn't formalised the same way the equivalent human institution was. At least, not as far as any outsiders knew. She had no idea exactly what "betrothed" could mean in that cultural context. But whatever, didn't matter. Right, along that tangent, Hermione would just _hate_ this, she knew. She felt completely justified in deciding to simply not tell her. Letting out a sigh, Charissa let her hands drop from Delacour, leaned back into the chair. 'All right.' Thinking of Hermione, and Lydie and Laia, Charissa suddenly had a thought. 'Won't they mind you randomly running off and snogging some human girl?'

Delacour let out a long humming noise, rocking back and forth in place a little, once. Just that, considering Delacour hadn't actually moved yet, was enough for Charissa to tense, drawing a sharp breath through clenched teeth; Delacour smirked down at her, annoyingly amused. 'Normally, you being human would be problematic, yes, but...' One hand lifted again, Delacour resting a single finger right over her heart. 'You're not exactly a normal human, are you?'

Charissa had absolutely no idea what she meant by that.

Before she could even think to ask, Delacour darted forward to plant a last soft kiss on her lips, and was then on her feet, far too quickly for Charissa to properly enjoy it. Oh well, she had just had plenty. 'Until next time, Charissa.'

Despite herself, Charissa couldn't help grinning at the thought of a _next time_. 'Until then—' She hesitated for an instant, unsure if whatever the hell this had been gave her the right. Eh. '—Fleur.'

Even as she started walking away, Delacour paused, a slight frown crossing her face. After a short hesitation, 'Filʊ̄s. sa'Çyr Filʊ̄s.' When Charissa just frowned at her, Delacour smiled, said all teasingly sweet, 'You didn't think _Fleur Delacour_ was my real name, did you?' Without another word, she turned, and glided away.

Once she was alone, Charissa relaxed back into the chair with a sigh, lifted both hands to rub at her face. That had been... Well, perfectly amazing, but _completely_ out of nowhere. No idea how that had happened. And if she hadn't been tired before, now, well. Now that she didn't have a beautiful older girl between her legs, _and that had really happened what the fuck_ , she'd really rather get to bed. And she'd have to walk all the way from—

Charissa frowned, her hands dropping from her face. She looked around the room, the softly crackling fireplace, the empty couches and chairs, the decorations in Hufflepuff and Slytherin colours. She knew this room, it seemed vaguely familiar. There were several rooms around the castle just like this one. But...

How had she gotten here?

...

Huh.

* * *

cīrwayd (IPA: /kyr wa: jəd/, roughly "coor-wah-yid") — _Formed from Irish/Scottish "cóir/còir", with a justice/duty-related meaning the exact translation of which varies depending on context, and "gwaed", much more simply the Welsh word for blood._

Saxony — _For clarification, this is not the modern German state of Saxony. She's referring to a Plattdüütsch/Frysk-speaking magical nation that covers oh, roughly the northern half of Germany, maybe a little bit of southern Denmark, parts of northwestern Poland, and the northeast of the Netherlands — which doesn't even include the modern state with the same name, German history is confusing. Uh, Plattdüütsch is Low German, and Frysk is Frisian, by the way._

Faolán — _roughly "fee-lawn" (IPA:_ /fˠi:.lˠa:nˠ/ _)_

ydvoxaþ — _roughly "id-voh-hahth" (IPA:_ /ɨd vɔ xaθ/ _)_

illēnsecā — _Latin, meaning literally "cut into them/those"; Bella is slurring a bit, it's properly "illa īnsecā"_

cer — _Brīþwn word for castle or fort, typically used for fortresses more toward the smaller side (cognate to Welsh caer). Latin-origin words are used for the big ones._

[Aber Wrax in Brittany] — _This is a real place, spelled Aber Wrac'h; Charissa is using the Brīþwn orthography spelling of the Breton name. I don't know if this will come up later, so I might as well explain now. The Blacks aren't natively Celtic, moved from further southeast so long ago this branch has been British long enough to be an NMA House. Their earliest acquisition in modern magical Britain was a small parcel of land in Brittany, which they eventually built a fortress on, and was the location the British branch of the family mostly lived out of for centuries. They don't use it nearly as much anymore, most of the land and fortress itself actually leased out for government use — it's used as an international portkey/floo hub these days — but there are a few parts they've held on to. Like the library. In common parlance, the location is usually called Aber Wrax by holonymy, but the name is still technically Chastel Blanc de li Celtes. And yes, House Blacks' precursors on the Continent use names literally meaning "White"; I have a whole complicated history behind House Black in my head going back thousands of years, but I've rambled more than long enough now._

Pirá kaþarízontas, s'eména katá omíxli ðénete (Modern Greek: Πυρά καθαρίζοντας, σ'εμένα κατά ομίχλη δένετε) — _Means something like "cleansing fires, (come) to me (and) bind into (a) fog"; the same thing appeared in chapter 18, with a single different word. I did put the quotation mark where I meant to, Charissa only said the last two words out loud._

Paxpéfte (slurred "páxni péfte", Modern Greek: πάχνη πέφτε) — _Meaning something like "rime, fall" in the imperative. Yes, it is somewhat ungrammatical, I tend to ignore articles and proper word order a bit for incantations in Greek._

Rḗtte (Ancient Greek: ῥῆττε) — _Imperative of verb meaning to tear, shatter, or break._

Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt — _Roughly 1292 through 1189 BCE. This is when the Egyptian Empire is generally considered to have reached its zenith — the pharaoh almost universally considered the greatest in Egyptian history, usually called Ramesses II, ruled for literally 2/3rds of this period. Much of their foreign relations situation was characterised by a rivalry with the Indo–European Hittite Empire, native to modern Turkey, who they fought with over the Levant repeatedly. In my headcanon, their wars against the Hittites would have involved magic users as well, and somewhat primitive wands would even have been in common use by this time, the refined techniques designed for use against the Hittites eventually developing into dozens of more modern combat styles. (Actually, Ramesses II himself would have had the same training as a mage warrior, as it was not uncommon at the time for leaders to fight alongside common soldiers; his remains in real life even show signs of old battle wounds.)_

Flamma impulsāns, assurge — _Latin,_ _means something like "pushing/striking fire, rise (up)"_

Saepem glaciālem — _Latin, meaning "icy fence" in the accusative, object of a dropped verb. If it seems familiar to some of you, Melantha cast the same spell back in chapter 13 of TRW._

Glaciālanceās fulminantēs — _Latin, something like "fulminating ice-javelin", again in the accusative. This is actually a comparatively advanced bit of elemental magic, hence Charissa's reaction._

Filʊ̄s — _Pronounced more or less "fee-loose" (IPA:_ /ɸi.ʎɯ̞:s̪/ _). I waffled on what to do for the "ʊ̄", but couldn't think of a better letter for it._


	23. Fourth Year — November 25th

_Ugh. Sorry in advance for any bluhness, my brain just is not cooperating lately._

 _To the guest who commented last time that Fleur (I assume) was being a bit rapey: Yes, she was. You say that as if you think I approve._

* * *

 _November 25th, 1994_

* * *

The Song ringing in her head, Luna was slowly drawn into consciousness.

That's what Mummy had called it, the Song. Luna wasn't entirely sure why she'd chosen the word. She knew Mummy had _talked_ about it like it was sound, a constant music in her ears everywhere she went, some tones smooth and beautiful, some quick and energetic, others harsh and discordant. Mummy wasn't even the first to call the fabric of magic surrounding and penetrating the Song — it was an old idea, one that had been around for thousands of years, passed down from one people to the next. She assumed using it had to be a metaphor of some kind, figurative, because it _wasn't_ sound, not really.

At least, assuming it worked the same way with her it had with Mummy. Luna liked to think so.

The taste-that-was-not-a-taste of Hogwarts was in her head, warm lavender and tangy honey, maternal magic thick in the air as soup. (It was honestly hard to tell what the food here was supposed to taste like, sometimes.) The clinging fingers of dozens and dozens of minds waking up around her pinched at her skin, the shuffling tides of thought and emotion, threads vibrating with history and destiny setting her teeth to shuddering. (It was a wonder she could ever concentrate here at all.) By the tension building in the air, causes about to collide, relax into effects, Luna knew it had to be getting rather close to time to get up.

Not that there was actual class today. Tomorrow was the first task of the Tournament — the underlying current of building excitement had had her oddly giddy the last few days — so classes had been cancelled as everyone ran about preparing. She would have to be up eventually, of course. They were using the opportunity of cancelled class to have a lengthier-than-usual duelling practice. The first set of duels, in a couple weeks, were singles, so they didn't have to work on their pair and group cohesion quite yet, but Charissa still thought it was wise for them to practise as a team, to build against each other, get a feeling for everyone else's abilities. Not that Luna disagreed, exactly, Charissa was just the one to suggest it.

At least, it had been Charissa who had brought it up. She'd had the faint sense of quoting someone, so it was very possible someone else had suggested it to her first, but Luna had never asked.

Hmm, Charissa felt like she was quoting someone rather a lot, actually. Her mother, maybe? Or just an artifact of her Charissa-ness? She'd never really thought about it.

This morning was different, she could tell. She'd noticed it before. The electric shiver of power contained, bitter anxiety poisoning the familiar honey on her tongue. Something was coming to Hogwarts, soon, something powerful. But it would leave. Hogwarts was deeper tied into the chords of fate than was she, She would know if danger were coming, and She was anxious, but not afraid. Perhaps _anxious_ wasn't even the proper word. Anticipatory? Welcoming, like calling out to an old friend, but also wary, like the friend were a wild animal, a force of nature, beloved but dangerous, someone with whom a light touch was needed. Not a foreign feeling for Luna, but odd to feel it in the slowly pulsing, flower-sweet Song of the castle. It was curious.

Hmm... Hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm...

Was Jas awake yet? She'd really rather get up than let her mind wander. It could be hard to act normal for hours afterward when she allowed herself to get lost too—

Oh! She felt it immediately, the wash of prickling tingles sweeping across her, strong at first until she unconsciously adjusted, then nothing but a subtle sense of warmth and motion. And a slight sting of annoyance, but mostly just wakefulness. Okay, good. She could get up then.

A few seconds after she was on her feet, Jas pushed past his curtains. He took a glance at her, let out something halfway between a yawn and, 'Morning, Dove,' and started going for his clothes.

She knew other people found Jas's nickname for her kind of odd. But every time she heard it, she couldn't help smiling a little. Probably just because Jas was the first legitimate friend she'd ever had. It was nice.

Not that she hadn't found him a bit confusing at first — which hadn't been his fault, really. That first day at Hogwarts, the second she'd seen Jas, she'd instantly labelled him a boy in her head. She hadn't even known why, exactly, she just had. She could only assume it had been, as Jas would put it, 'one of those Seer things.' People didn't normally name boys after flowers, but Luna would be the first to admit that she didn't know all that much about muggles; maybe it was different with them? The plait his hair had been in had been a bit girly, sure, but, again, maybe it was a muggle cultural difference. She'd just brushed it off. It wasn't until later, when the other Ravenclaw girls had been talking about shuffling around so none of them had to share a room with her — with how people talked, she'd already had a reputation by then, so she'd half-expected it — and Jas was actually participating that she realised something odd was going on.

Jas had said before that he appreciated how Luna had instantly switched to treating him like a boy, didn't say a thing about it or seemingly have a single second thought, had always patiently been there, behaving perfectly normally (normally for her, anyway, he'd said with a smirk), making the whole thing easier on him. Luna hadn't been sure how to explain that she hadn't switched at all. Honestly, she was baffled no one else had noticed.

And of course she was going to be as nice as she could: Jas had instantly started the whole friendship thing, seemingly without any second thoughts himself. Even though, as Luna was perfectly aware, other people found her very, very strange. Jas had probably been her first real friend. She'd spent a fair amount of time before Hogwarts with Ginevra, yes, but she'd never really gotten the feeling Ginevra _liked_ her — she just didn't have any other options. She would say she and Ginevra were friends _now_ , but that'd taken almost a whole year at Hogwarts to happen. And other people she'd known pre-Hogwarts, she'd always gotten the impression it was more obligation to their parents who had introduced them in the first place than any actual affection for her. Same in Charissa's case, though she was much nicer now. Nice for Charissa, anyway.

Though, come to think of it, the Potters and Palmers should probably count as semi-family, though they never actually acknowledged it. Lily had explained to her once how she'd found out when she'd been about the age Luna was now that her grandmother was born a d'Angeus, a squib cast out of the French magical noble family early in her life. Through Luna's Blanchet side, the two of them had a recent ancestor in common in the Aquitanian Cæciné family — they were fourth cousins. Of course, by the time one was talking about _fourth_ cousins it really barely counted, and it wasn't something any of them ever really mentioned. But it was true.

But anyway, yes, Jas had been perfectly nice to her from the beginning. He talked to her almost constantly, they partnered in all their classes, he even picked fights with anyone who was mean to her — which was really quite unnecessary, but sweet. At first, he'd thought the things she talked about were nonsense just like everyone else, but she could tell he'd always found it less disturbing, and more endearing. Which, sure, somewhat condescending, but fine. But he'd also been one of the very first to admit that maybe she actually _did_ know stuff she shouldn't, had been the first to casually acknowledge, Yeah, Luna's a Seer, that's a thing that's true. And he was one of only two people (the other being Charissa) who hadn't had a single moment of discomfort about the idea either.

She could even See it — actually, one of the very few things she actually _saw_ , instead of sensed some other way. She could sort of see relationships between people, vibrating threads tying them together either loosely or tightly, sometimes resonating with history or destiny, though never in ways that were easily understandable. She didn't have the proper perspective to see the connection itself, but Jas was absolutely wreathed in threads she could see were in resonance with her. Luna was probably Jas's best friend right now, and he was definitely hers, she could see that. A little disharmonic interference she caught now and again told her they wouldn't _always_ be this close, but they certainly were now. Jas actually liked her, they were friends, it was honest.

It was nice.

For a moment, she watched Jas, even though he was changing right now, which was sort of awkward. But she wasn't really looking directly at him, instead eyeing those colourful, vibrating threads, that beautiful evidence of their friendship. Jas glanced back at her, but didn't comment — she had explained exactly what she was doing in these moments, after all. Before long, Luna snapped out of it, and started making for her own clothes.

'Oh, do you have duelling practice today?'

Half-dressed, Luna paused to blink at that, staring at Jas for a moment. Oh, right, obviously. Luna would usually have a shower in the morning. But there was really no point in doing that if she was going to be getting all sweaty in a couple hours anyway. That she was getting dressed for breakfast, in trousers at that, straight out of bed was sort of a giveaway. 'Yes, we do. Straight after breakfast.'

'Ah.' She guessed Jas didn't particularly care, since there was quidditch practice this morning and all — he'd made reserve chaser this year. 'Library after lunch?'

'Mm-hmm.' Luna took a moment dressing to focus on blanking her mind, pushing off the increasing pinching and prodding as more and more people around them woke up. Mostly worked. A thought suddenly occurred to her — it felt slightly foreign, so she guessed it was possible Jas was thinking about something similar — and a loose smile pulled at her lips. Forcing her voice as light and casual as she could, she said, 'So, did you ask Gwyneira to the Yule Ball yet?'

She wasn't looking at the moment, but the sudden sense of heat, of smallness, of evasion, altogether told her Jas had probably gone rather pink. 'Ah, no, I wasn't planning on it.' Mm-hmm. 'I wasn't gonna try to do anything, er, boyfriend-like while I'm still, well, you know.'

Oh. Not _mm-hmm_ , then. Fantasising didn't count as planning. Could be hard to tell the difference. Luna took a moment to think about that. Calling to mind the threads binding the two of them, the waves and tides of feeling and intent constantly washing against her when they were both around. Trying to extrapolate based on what she'd observed of other people — and, since she'd observed such things in people she knew well so rarely, she didn't have a lot to work with. She still thought she was right, though. In fact, she was rather certain there would be children. 'I doubt she would mind.'

She felt the jittering from Jas's direction, so she turned to meet his eyes. The mixed confusion and hope about him was very odd. 'Really? I mean...' He shifted in place slightly, shrugging a little. 'The whole thing is very odd, isn't it?'

'Mm, for muggles it might be. I know I've told you this before, but to us people like you aren't anything unusual. Even Hermione is getting used to it.'

Jas rolled his eyes at that. 'Pretty sure my cousin snogged Maïa into indifference.'

There really wasn't much to say to that — Luna wasn't sure he was wrong. 'The point is, Gwyneira doesn't care. Third years aren't all able to go, but since she's the future Lady Longbottom, she can. But I know she doesn't plan to, because you haven't asked her.' She wasn't even cheating to know that: Gwyneira had asked Luna if she knew what Jas intended. Letting her smile turn a little teasing, Luna added, 'And speaking of snogging, I'm sure she wouldn't mind a little kissing. _She_ doesn't find the whole thing odd.'

That one, Luna was cheating to know. But she was a cheater.

Still looking very red about the ears, Jas broke eye contact. But he said, 'Well, maybe I'll talk to her about it, then.' Mm-hmm.

You're welcome, Gwyneira.

* * *

Most people didn't seem to understand magic. They didn't.

Which she guessed was mostly a fault with how it was taught. Ever since their first theory class in their first year, they'd been told about power and will, yes, but also about focī and incantations and somatic forms. They were told the words and the movements were necessary. They weren't, really. If the charms had to be cast exactly that way to make magic happen, how had people learned magic before there were wands? Even that word, _focī_ , was suggestive of something else. People seemed to forget _focus_ meant something entirely different in Latin than it did in modern English — the word literally meant hearth, or fireplace, the use dating from how archaic Italic peoples, before even the unification of Latium, before wands had been brought from across the sea, would raise primitive wards around their homes by burning magical substances, offering prayers and blood in exchange for safety. Magic was far more an amorphous, unpredictable thing than they liked to project. So narrow-minded.

Of course, when using a wand, incantations and such were useful. Not necessary, but useful. It was an association game, basically. A person associated certain words, certain motions with the charm, so doing that spell became easier. The trick was, once you _knew_ it was just association, you could associate a charm with anything you wanted to get the same effect.

With Aunt Cassie's help, Luna had taken a whole bunch of jinxes and hexes, a couple curses, mostly obscure ones no one ever used, and assigned them each a pitch. Like Mummy had taught her a long time ago, a single pitch, going up by half-steps, across her entire vocal range. Some of them, she could do with only the pitch, but others she needed add only minimal little flicks and such for, nothing too much. And she needed only hum to herself, little twitches of her wand when necessary, to pour so many charms on someone so fast it was unlikely they'd be able to keep up. Aunt Cassie said it was a neat trick.

She'd memorised a few songs in G minor. She liked G minor. D minor was also good, but she'd coincidentally put a binding hex on E flat that was quick and almost impossible to see, and, in situations where the seventh was raised, she liked the cutting curse on F sharp better than the knockback jinx on C sharp. She liked G minor.

Tracey did not like G minor.

Tracey really did not like duelling her in general, to be honest. But they'd ended up together for another practice duel, and Tracey had tried to get out some elemental magic, not sure exactly what. But Luna had already had a song in her head, this fugue from Bach, no idea what it was called, but Luna was already humming, and Tracey was hiding behind a shield charm.

 _Hmm-hm-hm-hmm-hmm-hmm-hm-hm-hmm-hm-hm-hmm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm—_ Oh, look at that, the F sharp shattered her shield. Luna fired off an E flat as soon as she noticed and Tracey was bound. Good.

If she could take someone out before they could do something big, she usually won. That was the problem when she'd tried to fight Charissa. She could just whip out big magic far too quickly. Even if Luna hadn't made the mistake of meeting elemental magic with elemental magic, against someone who was just plain more powerful and skilled than her which was always a bad idea, she still would have lost.

Deflecting charms with bare hands was _cheating_.

Yes, okay, she was still a little sore about that. Was it that obvious? Well, she'd try to forget it for now, then. It was just annoying.

She released the hex holding Tracey, leaving her on the ground with vile curses falling from her lips in a steady stream, and glided over toward the the chairs at the middle of the room they'd borrowed. For a moment she watched the duel still going on — for some reason, Charissa and Neville were toying with Alexis and Hesper, even though doubles weren't for months yet, but okay — then slipped into a seat next to Bella. 'What did I miss?'

Bella let out a sharp snort. But, then, she almost always felt sharp to Luna, like a ball of ice and lightning someone had hacked at, carving into dozens and dozens of little spines that stabbed and scorched at anything that touched them. Well, almost always — there were certain people she was far softer with, spines instead warm waters and soothing steam, but with the lightning always nearby, threateningly in the background. Hermione, Luna knew, really didn't like her. But she didn't mean anything by it, it's just what her experience had made of her, so Luna had never let it bother her. 'What did you miss?' she echoed, voice light and mocking. 'You were only gone a few seconds.'

With a flash of light and fire, a discordant clamour of humiliation, a snarled, 'Shut up or I'll curse you, Black,' Tracey fell into one of the couches with a heavy flumpf. _Flumpf_. Luna didn't know Tracey well at all, honestly, had hardly talked to her before Charissa had put this team together. What reason could they possibly have met for? Tracey was from a Noble House she had no direct or even indirect connection to, so they wouldn't have run into each other before Hogwarts, and she was in a different year and a Slytherin, so they'd had little opportunity to while here. All she'd really put together so far was that Tracey always looked and sounded angry, even though the flutters and song of emotion below were always something else, and, judging from the thread tying her to Charissa, they'd been acquaintances, if not friends, for some time. Anything involving Charissa could be hard to read, so she wasn't sure which was the better word. But that one made sense at least, what with both being halfblooded daughters of Noble Houses — Luna suspected as children they'd spent a lot of time together at those silly parties nobility had all the time, probably avoiding everyone else.

But anyway, 'Tracey doesn't like G minor.'

Bella stared at her, a single eyebrow slowly rising, the icy magic beneath twisting slightly with confusion, only mild, but also ringing with amusement, somehow hitting a shocking trio of perfect fourths that made Luna blink. She had no idea what Luna meant.

But that was fine. If Luna'd wanted her to, she'd have said something else.

 _Omne īgnōtum prō māgnificō est._

She hadn't really been paying attention, but at some point the other four finished their thing. They were walking over, Neville faintly amused, the twins faintly annoyed, Hesper's clothes a bit scorched. At least...she thought it was Hesper? She had trouble telling them apart. When she'd said that to Jas once, he'd given her a really weird look — other people didn't have any trouble with fraternal twins, most of the time, and the Gaunts were even opposite sexes. But then, she'd thought Jas was a boy the entire time, hadn't she? She'd long suspected that even her normal eyesight didn't show her reality as everyone else saw it. They were practically identical to her, both appearing distinctly androgynous, even the smooth waters and soft flames of their minds indistinguishable, soft notes of cold humour and dark glee always in perfect resonance with each other, the chords binding them to the world anchoring not on each individually, but wrapping around the pair of them as a unit. The phenomenon was almost exactly the same as in the Weasley twins, actually. Their personalities were even similar, though the Weasleys felt somewhat warmer.

Honestly? It'd confused her at first how people could distinguish the Gaunts but not the Weasleys. But she'd long grown accustomed to the reality that she was different.

The four were getting close enough to hear what they were saying, so she could tell it wasn't in English. Hmm, Neville must have gotten used to hearing Parseltongue, because he wasn't reacting at all. He had at first. Anyway, she wasn't perfect with Parseltongue, to be honest, some of the sounds were so similar and the grammar was confusingly minimal. But she thought one of the Gaunts was saying, ' _No excuse, Cousin. That was just cheating_.'

The other one continued with, ' _Yes, yes, such a cheater. So mean to us._ '

' _I think I might cry_.'

Well, at least she and the Gaunts agreed on one thing. Charissa was a cheater.

When Charissa answered, it was with a faint tone of annoyance — so far as emotion carried on Parseltongue, anyway — but her mind was ringing with very clear amusement. At least, very clear for her, relatively speaking. Charissa was very hard to read. She had the sense of incredible pressure, an explosion of flame barely contained an inch under skin, sort of like Luna had felt around powerful mages before. Actually, she reminded her of Lily quite a bit, except for where Lily was filled with fire incandescent and sharp — unforgivingly hot and certainly dangerous, yes, but still lively and bright — Charissa was filled with flames of biting cold and suffocating black. She was like black text on black paper, there was hardly enough contrast at all to figure out what was going on inside. And she still didn't know how to interpret the odd, shimmering texture of the threads binding her. It was very odd. She'd mostly adapted to it by now, could read her mostly fine, she just wasn't as confident as she was with most everyone else.

She used to be rather scared of Charissa, when she was little. But, from years of observation, she'd long determined there wasn't any reason to be — honestly, she wasn't even sure if the variation she noticed between people even meant anything. It was all so random sometimes. She was still wary, though. Sort of like how Hogwarts seemed to feel about that guest She was anticipating, she supposed.

But anyway, Charissa was talking, yes. ' _It's not cheating to hit when you're distracted. You were paying too much attention to Peatfingers_.' That was their Parseltongue nickname for Neville, Luna knew, referencing his frankly adorable Herbology hobby.

The twins let out a harmonised, stuttering hiss of a laugh. ' _Yes, yes, I should have known._ '

' _Don't like being ignored, do you, Cousin?_ ' And they laughed some more.

Well, Luna wasn't exactly about to argue with that either.

It was around then she noticed the most peculiar spark of magic. She couldn't tell exactly what it was. It came as a bright flash of white light, but seemingly not directed anyhow, just shining briefly in one spot, along with a low whistling noise and an odd feeling of nausea she'd never felt from magic before. It was very strange. She glanced around, trying to pick up the source, but didn't notice anything. Huh.

' _I can't disagree on the content, little ones_.' Charissa was self-aware enough for that, at least. ' _It's just the tone I'm not liking._ '

' _Oh, forgive us, Cousin, yes_.'

Through another flash of magic, Luna noticed movement to her side. She looked that way to see Bella was frowning, rubbing at her forehead. Her magic was twisting, contorting, more than Luna would normally see, enough it was making her slightly dizzy. That was very peculiar. She didn't normally notice that much movement, enough to shuffle things around at the most inner—

Wait a second...

' _Oh yes, your sternness is very threatening_.'

' _It's not like we've never heard the same from others._ '

' _Others far scarier than you_.'

She couldn't recall reading anything about that anywhere. The three jokers over there were Parselmouths by birth, it was an innate aspect of their magic, rising from their blood. Parselmouths could actually speak some Parseltongue before they were old enough to speak a normal language, it was very interesting. And Bella was an omniglot. The ability somehow — nobody was entirely sure how — took another person's aptitude with a language and copied it into the omniglot's head. She'd only read what happened with _learned_ languages, nothing with inborn ones.

The flash of nauseating magic came again, and this time Luna caught the reactionary flinch in her sense of all three Parselmouths. Small, hardly noticeable, but there.

She couldn't imagine this would be pleasant for Bella.

' _And who is scarier than me_?'

' _Well, Mother, for one._ '

' _Auntie is good too_.'

' _Grandfather_.'

' _Yes, good, I'll give you that one. Your grandfather is creepy_.'

' _I almost feel I should be offended_.'

' _So short, Cousin_.'

' _So rude_.'

' _Weren't you the ones who—_ '

Charissa was cut off when Bella let out a long groan of pain, clutching her head in her hands as she leaned forward in her chair, her mind singing with agony and confusion and terror, magic twisting in such an unpredictable dance Luna almost thought she would be sick. Everyone was suddenly focused on Bella, darting over to her chair, asking her what was wrong and all, worried notes piercing the air, but Bella didn't seem to hear at all, gasping for breath, rocking back and forth in her chair.

Yeah. Luna couldn't imagine it would be at all pleasant to have becoming a Parselmouth suddenly forced on her like this. Really, _really_ not how the magic was supposed to work.

Eventually, Bella slowly calmed down, seemingly ignorant of the continuing questions from anyone else. When Neville said he was going to go get Madam Pomfrey, and started walking toward the door, Bella said, ' _Don't bother, I'm fine_.' Neville stopped, everything about him tingling with confusion.

Because Bella had just spoken Parseltongue. Without even noticing. And, as Luna had suspected it might be, it had been native Parseltongue, how Parselmouths speak it, with that resonant undertone of instinctive magic under it.

And Bella had just broken a hundred established laws of magic without even meaning to. Good job. And that wasn't even sarcasm, Luna thought it was sort of brilliant.

The Parselmouths in the room just stared at Bella for a moment. Then Charissa drew her wand, with a twist and a muttered word conjuring a snake of some kind to fall before her where she was kneeling in front of Bella's chair. Luna stared for a moment in surprise, for two reasons: for one, she hadn't really thought Charissa was very good at conjuring yet — though, she supposed using a charm to do it was a rather easy shortcut — and for another, with how Charissa had always tried to avoid anything Parseltongue-related, she hadn't expected Charissa to actually know that one.

Charissa stared at Bella with a steady, level gaze, ignoring the green and black construct watching her, the threads that bound the two of them reverberating with inscrutable music. Luna didn't know how to interpret the chords between Charissa and Bella. They were extremely thick, some of the densest and widest she'd ever seen, implying they were going to be very close eventually, even if they weren't now. But the gleaming, shimmering texture of them, the chaotically beautiful melodies drifting between them, those she had no idea what to think about. It was pretty though. More than once Luna had just sat and listened to the contrasting, hauntingly inhuman harmony wafting from them, it was nice. But anyway, Charissa said, ' _Speak to it_.'

Still looking a bit pale, feeling a bit dazed, Bella said, ' _Why would I do that_?' In Parseltongue, again — Luna got the impression she didn't realise she was doing it.

' _Just do it_.'

Bella rolled her eyes, looked down at the snake. ' _My cousin is..._ ' She trailed off, blinking to herself, ringing with confusion. Luna had felt it, Bella's magic reaching out to the snake-shaped magical construct, inscribing her influence into its primitive artificial mind, broadening and deepening its magic with her own. That was always interesting to watch. Now Bella looked back up to Charissa, said, ' _Okay,_ what the fuck was that?' Oh, English again. Trying to swear must have signaled a code switch. Interesting.

'It looks like you've become a Parselmouth somehow.' Vanishing the snake, Charissa seemed mostly confused. The Gaunts were practically ecstatic, though, practically vibrating with excitement. She was more with the Gaunts on this one, honestly. It was very interesting.

' _Kī tū bārē..._ ' Bella broke off, leaning forward in her chair again, rubbing at her forehead some more. ' _Fy_ , _tá mo cheann nimhneach_.' Oh! That one Luna knew, that was Gaelic at the end. Her head was...poisonous? poisoned? No...

Anyway, after a little talking back and forth — Bella still wasn't making any sense half the time, jumping from language to language in a confusing mess — the twins volunteered to take Bella to Madam Pomfrey. Bella didn't protest this time, apparently her headache was getting worse. Before Luna really noticed what was happening, the three of them had left, and it was just her, Charissa, Peatfingers, and Tracey left. Charissa flopped into the same couch Tracey was still in, the air between them sparking with ringing tingles. Hmm. That was odd.

It was Neville who actually spoke, after a long sigh. 'Well, I suppose we were mostly done for today anyway.'

Luna couldn't see from this angle, but she was pretty sure Charissa shrugged. 'Yes, I suppose. You were meeting up with us in the library again this afternoon, right?' After a nod from Neville, she said, 'I guess that's it, then.'

'Hmm.' Luna pushed herself up to her feet, drifting around in Neville's general direction. And looked down at the drifting magic between Charissa and Tracey. Hmm, that was... 'I was going to have a bath quick,' she said, forcing her voice as casual as she could.

'See you at lunch.' She didn't miss the slight wariness in the black music drifting from her, though her voice seemed completely clear of it. It was hard to hide things from an empath.

Luna momentarily frowned at the two of them, glanced at Neville — he didn't seem to be noticing anything. If anything, she thought he was confused by this moment she was having here. She'd admit she was acting a little odd, but, well. She thought she had reason to be acting a little odd. She could feel it coming, chords in the present harmonising with future states, muddy and indistinct, but the general impression easy to interpret. If only due to immanency, she knew what that was. Not really her business, but...

Shrugging it off, she turned, starting walking off for the door with Neville at her shoulder. Considering an entirely different problem: should she tell Hermione? She had the very distinct impression Hermione didn't know. There would have been no reason for that wariness otherwise. Perhaps...

No. No, she wouldn't. For one thing, she would have to explain _how_ she knew, and that was always awkward. Nobody seemed to like being reminded she knew things about them she shouldn't possibly know. It made them uncomfortable. Things were easier for her friends if they could just not think about it. For a second thing, well, if she told Hermione, Hermione would always associate her with it. Even though she would know it wasn't really Luna's fault, she'd remember it far too easily, just looking at her. That was the problem with having a friend with perfect recall. She liked Hermione too much to risk that poison. No, she'd just leave it be.

For a moment, she allowed her friends a little pity. She couldn't imagine it was perfectly nice being friends with her all the time. Not only was she a bit weird, she could admit that perfectly fine. But, well...

It was hard to hide things from an empath.

* * *

With a few long swipes of her wand, Charissa had her hair rebraided. Odd how fuzzy and crooked it'd gotten somehow, had no idea how that had happened. She figured she was mostly straightened out again. Should probably have a shower or something before too long — and _definitely_ wash her hands — but mostly fine.

And she was the only one. A glance showed Tracey hadn't moved, still lying languid spread across the couch, seemingly half-asleep. She hadn't even bothered with so much as the slightest motion for her clothes — not that Charissa was complaining about the view, mind. Charissa felt the smirk twitching at her lips. Just so silly. Was Tracey really that tired, or was she just playing around? Charissa couldn't imagine the former, she felt _great_ herself, impossibly light and almost vibrating with contained motion. Very hungry, though, she'd rather be getting down to lunch here. 'Are you going to be getting up any time soon?'

Tracey let out a slight moan, shifted in place a little. For a brief moment, Charissa's eyes were distracted downward by the motion. Nope, supposed to be leaving, pay attention. 'Depends what you mean by _soon_.'

'Well, you might want to put some clothes on, at least.'

A single eye peeling open, Tracey frowned up at her. 'Huh?'

She shrugged. 'I do plan on leaving, and I may not be inclined to lock the door behind me. Do you want someone stumbling in on you?'

'Mm.' Her eyes fell closed again. 'Depends on who does the stumbling.'

'You want me to put a selective avoidance ward around the door so only sufficiently fetching maidens can get through?' She wasn't physically capable of using the phrase _fetching maidens_ without a sarcastic smirk, but Tracey wasn't watching anyway.

'Yes.' Tracey lifted one hand, blindly pointing at her with a single finger. 'That. Do that. Those are always allowed.' She let her hand fall again.

Charissa snorted, shaking her head to herself. 'I'm serious, get up. I have things I have to do today.'

'Ergh, fine.' Tracey pushed herself upright, shooting her an exaggerated glare. 'So mean, Charissa. Here I am, screwing you all nice, and you won't even let me get a nap in for two damn seconds.'

'That sounds like your problem. I mean, this was your idea to begin with. You've known me for how long, now?'

'Yeah, but I didn't think you would be a bitch about it.' It was said in that very familiar low growl of hers, but the crooked smile on Tracey's face was easily visible. She was looking around, fingers slipping between the cushions, leaning over the edge — which, with how short Tracey's hair was and her current state of total undress, was giving Charissa a very interesting angle down her front. ' _Cax_ , where did my wand end up?'

After a moment playing her memory back in her head, Charissa remembered; then she had an idea, and immediately felt the smirk spreading across her face. She smoothly stepped closer to the couch, watching Tracey's faint annoyance gradually slip to confusion. Moving with as much of a casual air as she could, she placed one hand on the back of the couch, gently slipped her knee between Tracey's, gradually slid forward until she felt Tracey shift slightly, her breath catching. She leaned forward, into the pocket of warmth around Tracey's body, her cheek an inch from her ear, and reached back with her free hand, digging into the seam at the back of the cushions.

She was shorter than Tracey, but just barely. If she were any shorter, she probably wouldn't have been able to pull this off.

'Ah...' She couldn't help a smirk at the barely noticeable quiver on Tracey's voice, the restrained eagerness in her hands slipping across her hips. 'I, ah, thought you said you had to go.'

Charissa hummed into her ear for a moment. Then she abruptly yanked back against Tracey's hands, again standing in front of her. 'I did.' And she dropped Tracey's wand in her lap.

For a long moment, Tracey just glared up at her. Then, her voice perfectly calm and level, she said, 'I hate you, Charissa Potter.' With a single casual twirl from her wand, her scattered clothes sprung into the air and drifted over to her.

Her smirk still steady across her face, Charissa said, 'Aw, well, I hate you too, pet.'

Tracey snorted, the sound somewhat muffled with her head hidden by her tunic. Once she was free again, she gave Charissa a baffled sort of look. ' _Pet_?'

She shrugged. 'Sure, why not?' It was entirely possible there was a teasing note on her voice. She wasn't working very hard to prevent it.

Arranging her knickers and trousers, Tracey grumbled for a bit, then muttered, 'You're impossible, you know.'

Charissa just kept smirking. It wasn't like Tracey was actually annoyed anyway. If she didn't like her lovers teasing her, she wouldn't have come to Charissa. Then she hesitated, her smirk slipping a bit. This wasn't something she especially wanted to talk about. She wasn't really sure how well it would be received — other people could be unpredictably sensitive about certain things, she'd long given up the idea of anticipating _everything_. But, well, it was _definitely_ something she'd need to have cleared up before leaving, so...she'd just have to swallow her unease and say it. 'Mind doing me a favour?'

'Hmm?'

'Keep this to yourself.'

Tracey, now more or less presentable, froze for a moment before glancing up at her. 'Erm... Not saying I have a problem with that in principle, but I have to ask: why?'

Charissa shrugged, making the movement as casual as she could. 'It might get back to Hermione. I just doubt she would appreciate it, is all.'

'Why would it matter to her what...you...' Then one hand came up, covering her face with a shockingly loud slapping noise — sounded like that hurt quite a bit, really. 'Granger's your girlfriend, isn't she.'

'Yes.' Not that Charissa would have thought to use that term herself, she'd just heard it enough times to know it was probably accurate. Not from Hermione, though — she was being oddly persistent in not saying anything about exactly what was going on between them one way or the other.

'And you didn't tell her. And you don't _plan_ on telling her.'

Charissa couldn't hold back a sigh, her breath somewhat harsh. Given the particulars of this situation, the disapproval very clear on Tracey's voice, as slightly distorted as it was by the hand still over her face, was rather annoying her. 'And you're with Daphne, aren't you?'

'Well, _yes_.' If anything, Tracey just seemed even more annoyed all of a sudden, dropping her hand to glare up at Charissa with hard eyes that very familiar shade of deep grey she'd always associate with House Black. Actually, the sharp, cold anger in them right now was forcibly reminding Charissa of her own grandmother. Uncomfortable. 'The major difference there is that _I told her about it_. Fuck, I even _asked permission_ first. Jesus...' She trailed off, rubbing at her face with both hands.

'Not quite really the same thing,' Charissa said, shrugging to herself a little — to herself, since Tracey wasn't watching. 'Hermione's a muggleborn. Muggles are different about a lot of this kind of thing. I can't predict how she would even react to just mentioning the idea.'

Voice thick with dark amusement, Tracey let out a low chuckle. 'So, you don't think your girlfriend would be okay with you shagging other people, and you solve that problem byyyy _not_ telling her.'

Charissa frowned. That _was_ basically the point, yes, but Tracey's biting tone made it sound so terrible.

'I mean, Charissa...' Tracey was silent a moment, staring at her with an expression on her face Charissa couldn't quite interpret. Confused, maybe? Wary? Something like that. 'You're aware it's just...basic, common decency, right? to tell the people you're shagging about the other people you're shagging? That's just what people—' Tracey broke off, breaking eye contact again to rub at her eyes with one hand. 'Shite, I wouldn't think this would be the sort of thing I would have to explain.'

'Well, rest assured. I'm not even breaking that rule.' Tracey gave her another weird look at that, so Charissa clarified. 'Hermione and I aren't having sex. We've barely been kissing, even, she's been extremely skittish. Muggle sensibilities and all that.'

'I...' Tracey stared at her for a long moment, face blank and eyes slowly blinking. 'So, you're shagging _me_ , but not your...' Then she broke off, head tilting a little, a curious frown on her face, but only for a moment, quickly replaced by, well, sort of a smirk in spite of herself, if that made sense. Like she were amused, but didn't think it quite proper to be amused. 'Charissa, did I just take your virginity?'

Slowly crossing her arms over her chest, Charissa made a short, dismissive sort of sniffing noise. 'You didn't _take_ anything.'

'Alright.' Tracey raised two defensive hands, shaking her head and chuckling a little under her breath. 'Alright, then, don't get all _Miss Potter_ on me. I just think it's funny is all. Kinda think I might be a terrible person for finding all this funny all of a sudden, but there it is.'

Charissa rolled her eyes. Saying finding this situation funny made Tracey a terrible person like that rather directly implied Charissa was a terrible person for allowing this situation to happen in the first place. But there wasn't really much point in calling attention to that. If Tracey hadn't meant to do that, it would be unnecessarily confrontational. 'Mm-hmm.'

'But, sure, I won't say anything.' Tracey shrugged a little, added, 'At least, not to anyone other than Daphne. And I'll ask her not to tell anyone else — I doubt she would, she has no reason to. That's the best you're gonna get from me.'

Charissa just nodded; that would do.

A couple minutes later, she was alone in one of the smaller bathrooms, on the first floor. She should probably wash up a little bit before going to lunch. After attacking her hands once with soap and water, she could still smell Tracey on her. With a sigh, she pulled out her wand, and hit her fingers with a scent neutralising charm she'd learned a while ago. And now she knew why the book she'd found it in had suggested not to use it on living things: _wow_ , was that unpleasant, a rough, dry feeling mixed with a sharp tingling. She quickly did the same with her other hand, then washed her hands again, the magically augmented soup soothing on her itching skin. There.

Except, she realised with a wince, not quite done yet. She hadn't been lying when she'd said she and Hermione barely even kissed, but they still _did_ , here and there. Now, that wouldn't ordinarily be a problem, but having this particular scent on her fingers was at least explainable if she were confronted on it. Her mouth? Not so much. Since a faint hint of Tracey was still lingering on her tongue, yeah, that could be a problem.

Gritting her teeth, she again gripped her wand, spread the same charm over the lower half of her face. She grimaced at the assault of desiccated itching, but pushed it off as well as she could. Warily, she opened her mouth, and took aim again.

The moment the charm landed, the pain hit so quickly Charissa entirely failed to hold back a high moan. If the effects of the charm on her hands and face were unpleasant, the same on the inside of her mouth was _horrible_. She felt rather like she were holding a mouthful of acid, slowly and mercilessly eating away at her gums. Grimacing from a combination of agony and embarrassment at her own slip just there, she barely managed to remember to return her wand to her holster before running the sink again, started splashing water over her face, passing handfuls into her mouth. After a moment of hesitation, she took a bit of soap and slipped that into her mouth too.

She moaned again, but this time with a heavy sense of relief. Tasted absolutely awful; felt absolutely _amazing_.

Once she'd mostly recovered from her own spell work, and she'd cleaned the nauseating, waxy soap out of her mouth, she took a moment to just breathe. _That_ had been unpleasant.

Entirely worth it, though. When she'd first been exposed to the idea of oral sex — from Dora, unsurprisingly — she'd thought the entire concept strange, and not a little disgusting. She could now say unreservedly that she understood completely.

Not that she'd be telling Dora that. Her silly cousin was annoying enough even when she wasn't chanting _I told you so_.

Two minutes later, she was walking into the Great Hall. She immediately noticed, from how full the tables were, that she was late. Not entirely surprising, she had been delayed a bit there. After a moment of searching, she spotted familiar bushy brown hair, only a short distance down from where they usually sat near the front end. Charissa started on her way over, reordering her mind to deal with group conversation, and prepared to—

' _Cousin, here now_.'

She froze, blinking at the sound of murmured Parseltongue, and turned to look over her shoulder. Hesper, standing rather close behind her, steadily staring. With some effort, she repressed a flash of annoyance — she'd told them multiple times not to speak Parseltongue at her in public, but they never listened. 'Yes, I'm here now. What is it?'

' _Proudeyes be well, but sleep long. Be free tomorrow._ '

Charissa took a second to glance around, confirm no one was paying attention. Due to the magic that carried it, it was possible to understand Parseltongue at a far lower volume than English, so she guessed no one had even heard that. Probably not tactful to say anything about it, but she was more annoyed about Hesper speaking Parseltongue to her in public than she'd been worried about Bella — the peculiar violet tint to her eyes was rather striking, so she wasn't surprised the twins had decided to reference that with those silly Parseltongue nicknames they made. But anyway, Charissa had been sure she would be fine. Slightly relieved they didn't have any unanticipated bad news, but she hadn't really been that concerned in the first place. But she still said, 'Thanks for telling me,' anyway.

With a little nod, Hesper turned away, and slipped off for the Slytherin table.

She hadn't even made it all the way to her own table before she noticed silver eyes steady on her. For a long moment, she simply stood, meeting Luna's gaze. Her very disapproving gaze, Charissa could immediately tell. It hadn't occurred to her Luna would know exactly what she got up to until, well, the very moment Luna had hesitated on her way out the door earlier. Rather embarrassing in retrospect, that should have been obvious.

In all fairness to herself, she hadn't at all anticipated Tracey would react so badly to the thought that she wasn't planning on telling Hermione — she'd thought a negative reaction was possible, but somehow tied to the request itself, not a moral objection to the overall situation — and, to be completely honest, still didn't fully understand what the problem was. What did it matter if she told Hermione or not? Hermione was clearly not open to greater physical intimacy, and Charissa most _certainly_ was — she wasn't going to push, that was one of the Rules, so she'd gone elsewhere. Seemed perfectly reasonable to her. And they'd both be happier with Hermione not knowing, she was certain of that. It was easier for everyone all around, and who did it really hurt? Nobody.

She didn't get it, she'd admit to still being mildly confused about the whole thing. But, well, assuming Tracey's viewpoint would be more natural to people who weren't herself, it was entirely possible she was about to have a problem.

But Luna just gave a helpless shrug, so slight the movement was barely visible, and turned back to Jas. Right. Good.

Charissa had barely been seated for two seconds — which was still, she noted with a smile, enough time for Hermione to slide right up against her and claim her left hand — when she nearly jumped right back to her feet when an owl came to a heavy landing right on her empty plate. She let out a short breath, giving the owl a glare. 'Muirgen, Iris, don't sneak up on me like that.'

'I thought she was a Potter owl,' Hermione said from her shoulder, a curious tone on her voice. 'She's been orbiting above the table for minutes now, waiting for you.'

Charissa was a touch surprised when that comment wasn't immediately followed by a question on why exactly she was so late getting to lunch. Hmm. She took the short roll of parchment from Iris, the owl immediately winging away with a somewhat annoyed air. Before touching the letter, she whipped out her wand quick, hit the parchment with a tricky little privacy charm Mum had taught her. It was basically a notice-me-not, acting on anyone who didn't happen to be touching the object in question — a mild one, only powerful enough to prevent anyone from making sense of specific details. Charissa let her wand slip back into her holster, unrolled the letter with the fingers of one hand.

The second she made it out, a block of ice fell into her stomach: Perry's handwriting, normally regular and gracefully angled for a child as young as he, was shaky, twitching and nearly illegible. She blocked out everything around her, the questions already coming from Hermione, and read.

 _Charissa—_

 _It's been getting worse since you left. I haven't said anyþing, but Mum has still been sleeping in ðe library, and ðey barely even talk to each oðer, and when ðey do it's all hard and mean. I'm sorry for lying, I just didn't want to worry you._

 _Ðey had a big fight earlier in ðe week. It was late, I was in bed, and ðey were downstairs, and I could hear ðem. Not clear enough to hear what ðey were saying, I don't know. And not just yelling, I heard oðer stuff. When I went down ðe next morning, ðe couch was still in þree pieces (it's fixed now) and ðere was a scorch mark on ðe floor._

 _It's been a few days now, and Mum hasn't come back home at all. I don't know where she is. I asked Dad ðis morning, and he said she's gone, and she's not coming back. He said some oðer stuff, but it was mean, and I don't believe it._

 _I'm sorry to boðer you at school, but I'm scared, and I don't know what to do._

— _Perry_

Charissa dropped the letter, the tension in the parchment forcing it into a roll again, and let out a long sigh, rubbing at her face with her free hand. This was going to be uncomfortable.

Without a word, she pushed herself to her feet, pulling her hand out of Hermione's. She grabbed for her again, some question about what was going on falling from her lips. But Charissa wasn't entirely sure exactly what she'd even said. Her pulse seemed to be rather loud in her ears all of a sudden, hard to make out. She picked up Perry's letter again, passed it to Hermione and, as gently as she could again slipped out of her grip. She was distantly aware that she wasn't being all that nice right now, but, well...

She had somewhere she had to be.

* * *

When reality snapped back into existence, her room materialising around her, Charissa stumbled and fell to her knees gasping, trying not to be sick.

She'd known intellectually, of course, that the power required for apparation increased with the range of the translocation — linearly, in fact, she'd seen the arithmancy. She'd never really apparated any significant distance before, though. Next time the opportunity came, she'd probably think twice about it. She was covered head to toe with an odd burning sensation, short of agonising but _definitely_ unpleasant, bad enough she absently traced herself with her fingers, relieved to find she hadn't splinched anything. She was strangely dizzy, the room swirling around her, and her stomach rebelled with each breath, every bit of her concentration necessary to keep herself from regurgitating the remains of her breakfast all over her bedroom floor.

Come to think of it, she had skipped out before actually having anything for lunch, and that was after hours of physical activity of various kinds. She should probably eat something eventually.

The burning and dizziness and nausea gradually faded, within a couple minutes enough to push herself back to her feet. Yeah, she'd definitely have to reconsider before doing anything like that again. Or maybe, with a little thought, she could chart a course across Britain with much shorter hops. Northwestern Scotland to south-central Wales was clearly too far to jump all at once. Shaking the thought off, she pushed open her door, walked over to Perry's, and slipped inside.

Even though it had to be after noon by now, she was not at all surprised to see Perry curled up in bed. The poor kid had always been a sensitive little thing — he would be in Hufflepuff next year, she was almost certain — so she'd have expected him to take their parents splitting up poorly. She knew she should probably be being gentle with him right now but, to be honest, she wouldn't be entirely sure how to go about it. Comforting depressed people was not exactly a developed skill of hers. So she instead made straight for his wardrobe, pulled out a robe at random, and tossed it on top of him. While he scrambled, fluttering arms yanking the robe off his face, Charissa said, 'Get up. We're going.'

Now sitting up, the robe bundled in his lap, Perry blinked at her with sleepy shock. 'Ch-Charissa? Shouldn't you be at school?'

She crossed her arms over her chest, shrugged. 'Yes, I should be. I decided you were more important.' Not entirely accurate, but not entirely a lie either, she guessed. 'Come on, throw that on. Unless you want to stall long enough for them to realise I'm gone and give me detention.' Even if they did figure out she disappeared, she didn't particularly think she _would_ get detention — if someone tried, Flitwick would probably argue her out of it — but that wasn't really the point. Anyway, they'd probably assume she'd snuck out to the impromptu ICW town bordering Hogsmeade. She wouldn't even be _close_ to the first to get up to mischief with their foreign guests during her downtime.

Even as he threw the robe over his head, which gleamed red even in the darkness of his windowless room, he asked, 'Where are we going?' She didn't miss the trace of a whine on his voice.

'To see our mother.'

And, just like that, every trace of reluctance vanished. She couldn't help smiling a little. Perry was just so adorable sometimes.

Once Perry was more or less presentable, Charissa led the way out, down the stairs to the sitting room. She was entirely unsurprised to find the room occupied — in fact, she'd counted on it. Arrayed across the furniture, conversing in low tones, were her father, Sirius, Peter, and Devin Fawley. For a moment, she _was_ surprised by Devin's presence, but he and Dad had been friends for longer than she'd been alive — their time in the Tornadoes overlapped — so she guessed she shouldn't be. Dad straightened as she walked in, the other men giving her weird looks. 'Charissa? What are you doing here?'

She paused for a moment, ignoring the men staring at her and Perry shuffling at her side, to take in her father. He seemed mostly normal. Slightly more downcast than usual, she guessed, the bouncing energy he always seemed to carry with him everywhere somewhat reduced. His hair was messier than usual, so she guessed he'd probably gotten a little behind as far as bathing was concerned. But he seemed mostly normal.

For some inexplicable reason, this just made her annoyed.

Forcing down the flash of anger, Charissa regathered herself, and said simply, 'Where is she?'

Dad didn't answer immediately. He stared up at her for long seconds, ignoring the men around him much as she had — though now they were the ones awkwardly shuffling, obviously uncomfortable being here for this conversation. The delay was making Charissa rather curious. He wasn't going to be that stupid, was he? She knew her parents must be having some kind of disagreement, but he _had_ to know it _really_ wouldn't be smart to— 'We're not going to have a problem, are we?' Well, maybe he was going to be that stupid. At least, he was flirting with it.

Not for the first time, Charissa wondered to herself why her father had to be so difficult the last few years. They _used_ to get on just fine! She'd never really taken an interest in the same things he had, sure, but they'd still gotten along. Some of her favourite childhood moments had involved him — they used to take these trips into the forest sometimes, he'd shift into Prongs and carry her on his back to this lake a short distance in, and they'd mess around for hours, usually until she simply passed out. It'd been years now, before first year, but that _had_ happened. Dora even used to tease her about it, saying the entire thing was just sickeningly adorable, calling her _Daddy's little naiad_. It was sort of embarrassing in retrospect, come to think of it.

She had absolutely no idea what happened. It'd been gradual, certainly. Linden actually showing interest in quidditch had drastically cut into the time he wasn't wrapped up in Wizengamot business — and even just that kept him far more busy than he'd been back when he was just a quidditch player. And as she'd gotten older, well, it'd grown gradually more obvious she was far more like her mother than she was like him. But, how could that possibly be a bad thing? Mum had been his choice, after all.

And, well, she guessed she had been something of an embarrassment for some time now. That time she'd taken issue with Pansy, back years ago now, while probably the most extreme example, certainly wasn't the _only_ time she'd ever made a scene in public. And even when she was behaving herself, she could hardly say she was the most graciously social person in existence, and her patience for society nonsense only seemed to decrease as she aged. Those rather scandalous articles that had found their way into the _Prophet_ about her certainly didn't help. The Dumbledore incident had prevented what had led to it from getting any attention, but then there had been people freaking out like idiots about her being a Parselmouth, and some of the things she'd read in the society pages after her wandless victory in her duel with Luna had been, just, entirely silly. She was aware she didn't have the greatest reputation among the Noble Houses — at least, not among the so-called Light Houses, since most of the Longbottom–Monroe alliance didn't seem to mind her, and rumours she'd heard implied she'd somehow made a shockingly positive impression on a lot of people in the Black–Ingham–Gaunt alliance — so she'd be entirely unsurprised if she'd been giving her father some, well, political difficulty. She was his heir, after all, she did reflect on him.

To be completely honest, it was certainly possible she already wasn't far from being more trouble than she was worth. It would have been difficult enough to find her a suitable husband in the first place. There were still a few matrilineal families, yes, and most Houses these days were at least nominally bilineal, but it still would have been a pain to find an acceptable match who was also willing to leave his name behind. She'd always sort of assumed he'd figure out something with one of the matrilineal Noble Houses — Longbottom or Gaunt, preferably, but others like the Slughorns or Carters or Tugwoods were also possible — but, since for various historical reasons matrilineal Houses tended to be Dark, most of those weren't exactly allies of House Potter, so it wouldn't have been easy. She seriously doubted her gradually worsening reputation was making it any easier. If what the Gaunt twins had told her were accurate, she wouldn't be surprised if even patrilineal Dark or neutral families who wouldn't have been open to it before might be now, but options Dad actually liked could very possibly be drying up.

She wouldn't be shocked if he ended up marrying her off, making Linden heir instead. Which would be something of an embarrassment for him, but cutting his losses and all that.

So...now that she thought about it, maybe she _could_ understand why her father was being so difficult lately. She just didn't like it, was all.

But she didn't give any of those thoughts away, instead just staring him down, planting her hands on her hips. 'I guess that depends on you.' She cut him off before he could get a full syllable out in response. 'I'd think about this very carefully if I were you, Father.' He visibly winced at the combination of her frigid tone — disrespectful, yes, but she did not care at the moment — and the more formal address. She hardly ever called him that. 'Is this really what you want to do? Do you think between us and our mother is a wise place to stand?'

Before she'd hardly even finished the sentence, Sirius blurted out, 'Grimmauld Place.' She almost laughed — apparently at least one of them thought that a very bad idea. When the other three turned to him, Dad giving him something of an exasperated look, he wilted a little, let out a sheepish shrug. 'Well, she is. Dora's planning on adopting her.'

Oh. Well. Good, then. The dissolution of her marriage, and her subsequent expulsion from House Potter, would have more or less stripped Mum of her citizenship. At least that was taken care of. Without another word, Charissa walked over to the hearth and, her arm wrapped around his shoulders, she and Perry stepped together into the London home of House Black.

They'd hardly even taken two steps onto white marble floor when there was a flash of magic and a soft snap, a house-elf abruptly appearing a short distance away, long fingers of one hand already threateningly raised. Just as the elf's loosening posture implied he'd recognised them, Charissa confirmed her assumption that this was Kreacher. The wrinkly little thing was almost disturbingly devoted to Walburga, the old hag, and had absorbed some of her disdain for anyone unfortunate enough not to be a pureblooded Black. Though, she'd noticed before that Kreacher wasn't nearly as awful to her as he was to Linden and Perry (especially Linden). She had no idea why, and to be honest didn't really care.

She managed only a glance around to confirm the family reception hall was empty save the three of them before Kreacher spoke in that low, gnarled voice of his. 'Miss Charissa.' His eyes flicked to Perry with a reluctant, 'Potter,' before turning his more neutral tone back to her. 'May Kreacher be helping?'

After a moment of thought, she shrugged — this place was rather large, asking him would be quickest. 'Is our mother here?'

'The—' Kreacher abruptly broke off, his mouth working silently. Despite herself, Charissa smiled a little: Dora must have given a standing order not to use certain language. Looking slightly disgruntled, Kreacher said, 'She is being here.'

'Could you take us to her?' Kreacher lifted one hand again, a sharp snap rising from his fingers. In a dizzying rush, constricting magic crashed upon the two of them, the room disappearing past a veil of tight blackness. An instant later, the pressure lifted, and another room appeared around them — a sitting room, by the look of it, decorated in deep reds and blacks gleaming silver, a fire crackling merrily in a hearth of dark stone. Steadying Perry with a hand on his shoulder, Charissa let out a snort. 'Not quite what I had in mind, but thanks.'

The second Charissa found Mum, she let out a heavy sigh. She was lying on her side on one of the couches, clearly unconscious, her clothes ruffled, her hair a tangled mess. And she did not at all miss the empty wine bottles on the floor nearby. Letting go of Perry, she walked over to the couch, kicked a bottle out of the way, and gave Mum's shoulder a hard shove. 'Wake up, Mum. Come on,' she said, with another couple shoves. 'This is really quite pathetic, you know.'

Whether it was the insult or the shoving, Charissa wasn't really sure, Mum let out a groan, jerkily pushed herself to sitting upright. She started giving Charissa a glare, but as soon as she opened her eyes she winced instead, her hand coming up to her forehead. 'Okay,' she said, voice uncharacteristically hoarse. 'Ow.'

Charissa just sighed again. Of course, bringing her little brother to their mother to reassure him everything was going to be okay, _of course_ Mum just had to be hungover. 'Please tell me you thought ahead and brewed a potion for that first.'

Even through her exhausted grimace of pain, Mum gave her a look. Charissa took an involuntary step back at the sudden explosion of heat and magic lifting from Mum's skin. It filled the air around her like a fog, streaming from her so dense it was almost visible, the air so thick with it it was noticeably harder to breathe, but it all still retained her characteristic dry heat, sharp enough it pinched at her skin. Charissa knew what this was, she'd felt it before — Mum had said it was a nearly universal trait of a sorcerer, their ability to channel magic so streamlined it moved constantly even when they didn't will it, a constant upwelling of undirected, ambient magic. But Mum said she almost always held it back, which was unpleasant but advisable, considering how uncomfortable this sort of easy display of power could make other people.

Herself, the feeling of her mother's magic enveloping her just made Charissa grin, feeling oddly childish.

She vaguely felt it twist into a charm of some kind, and a little potion bottle came swooping into Mum's hand. Ah, good. Even as she threw back the potion, an elf appeared at Charissa's hip with a low pop — not Kreacher, but Charissa couldn't remember her name. After Mum took the offered glass of water with a murmured thanks, the elf popped away again. Mum drained half the glass in a single draw, then looked up at Charissa, the slightest smirk on her splotchy face. 'Not missing class just to check on little ole me, are you?'

Charissa let out an amused snort before she could stop herself. 'No. First Task is tomorrow, classes were cancelled. And I was just bringing Perry.'

Mum's eyes flicked around, settling after a moment somewhere behind and to Charissa's side, an embarrassed wince crossing her face. 'Ah. Whoops.'

Shaking her head to herself, Charissa said, 'What, it's okay for me to see you all messed up and hungover, but not Perry?' She forced a bit of an offended tone on her voice, just for effect, even though she didn't actually care.

Before speaking, Mum pulled her face into a level expression, her voice all flat and serious. 'Some things, Charissa, are just meant to be kept between us girls. You understand.'

Yes, she did understand. She understood her mother was very, very silly.

From then on, she stepped back, taking a seat on a different couch, only half-listening to Mum and Perry softly talking — admittedly not-listening on purpose when Perry started half-crying at one point. Might seem a little strange to someone else, she thought, but she really didn't care all that much. At least, nowhere near to the degree Perry did. To be honest, that near-panic she'd gone into three years ago now, when she'd only _suspected_ her parents _might_ be having trouble, yeah, looking back on that she wasn't entirely sure what she'd been so worried about. Granted, at the time Mum hadn't really started teaching her magic yet, and she'd still been a junior Auror so her hours had been a bit insane, so they hadn't been spending near as much time together. She understood her mother much better now than she had then. Which is why she knew not to be too concerned.

It wasn't like Mum was going to disappear from her life or anything. Hadn't Charissa said it, reassuring Perry late last year about this very thing? Hadn't she kept to herself, the thought too dark to say aloud in front of her little brother, that Mum would likely do just about anything she felt necessary for her children, up to and including assassinating their father should he try to keep them from her?

Their mother was _Lily Potter_ , of all people. Muggleborn prodigy, famous sorceress, internationally renown for her defeat of an absurdly dangerous Dark Lord just over three years ago — when she'd learned after the fact just how nasty Éjbevissza had been reputed to be, she'd been retroactively terrified all over again. Mum undoubtedly loved them, there was more than enough proof of that, and there was _no one on Earth_ willing to keep her out of their lives who would actually be capable of it.

...

But, maybe Charissa should try to talk Dad into consenting to a proper apprenticeship. Just in case.

* * *

d'Angeus — _Modern descendants of the leadership of the old Gallic Andicavi, a Celtic tribe native to modern-day Pays de la Loire. Most were killed in Grindelwald's purges._

Cæciné — _An Aquitanian family of ultimately Etruscan origin, were nobility back when Aquitania had nobility._

Blanchet — _Among magical noble families, it is not at all unusual for them to have non-noble houses tied to them, who they consider sort of half-family, and frequently intermarry with. Blanchet is one such family for the Cæciné. For a British example, the Weasleys are the same for the Prewetts._

 _By the way, Luna isn't just making this up. In headcanon, she and Lily really are fourth cousins through Aquitanian nobility. It's a funny coincidence nobody in-story really cares about, but it's a thing._

[she's the future Lady Longbottom] — _In headcanon, Longbottom is a matrilineal house. So, when Augusta eventually steps down, the title will skip their father, skip Neville, and go straight to Gwyneira instead. There are still matrilineal houses in magical Britain, descended from old matriarchal clans, but most that were originally matrilineal are bilineal now instead — House Black is one such formerly matrilineal house, still evident in things like the "born from a Black uterus, you're a Black" rule. Actually, Gwyneira being the heir wasn't even the original plan. I'd made Longbottom a matrilineal house for historical reasons in a different fic, and didn't realise the inconsistency until later. Whoops._

[this fugue from Bach, no idea what it was called] — _In case any of you nerds are curious, It's BWV 578. There are vids on YouTube. And before you wonder, she's casting somewhat undertempo._

[ _Omne īgnōtum prō māgnificō est._ ] — _Quote from Tacitus, Roman Senator in the First Century. Roughly translates to "everything unknown seems magnificent." Sometimes Luna makes no sense on purpose, and this is why._

[Trying to swear must have signaled a code switch. Interesting.] — _Oh, Luna, you nerd! Code-switching is linguistics jargon for the instinctive changing of languages characteristic of multilingual people. There are many theories explaining why and when it happens, but some models involve switching to take advantage of more convenient vocabulary in a different language, which is Luna's guess here. And sorry, Luna, I have a feeling this is only interesting to us._

[ _Kī tū bārē..._ ] — _Bella, that's, ah, that's Punjabi, what are you—_

 _Fy_ — _Um, no, Bella, that's Norwegian, pay attention to—_

[ _tá mo cheann nimhneach_ ] — _And Irish now. Dammit, guys, you broke Bella. All three together is, "What are you...? Ugh, my head hurts." Luna's comment is because she's confusing_ nimhneach _with the etymologically related adjective_ nimhiúil — _both are from_ nimh _, which does mean poison. And my Irish isn't as good as Luna's, so it's possible I fucked up the Irish (or Punjabi) a bit._

Cax — _Brīþwn for "shit". Cognate to Welsh_ cachu _and Irish_ cac _. The proper pronunciation would be roughly_ /kʰax/ _in IPA (cah_ _ **h**_ _), but Tracey is actually saying something more like_ /cʲæ̝ç/ _which I took a moment to think about, because I'm a nerd._

Tornadoes — _I haven't said before which quidditch team James used to play for before, have I? Right, there you go._

[one of the matrilineal Noble Houses — Longbottom or Gaunt] — _House Gaunt is technically bilineal, but after the famous revival of the House under Merope, and the current Lord naming his eldest daughter as heir, it's generally thought they lean toward matrilineal these days._

* * *

 _Damn chapter kept fighting me. But isn't Luna fun? I think she's fun._

 _Before anyone says Charissa is being completely out of character, this is coming out of nowhere, omg she's such a terrible person, keep in mind:  
_ _1\. No, it's really not out of character — you'd have to make assumptions about her character on your own to think that — and it's not coming out of nowhere. I've been consciously laying bread crumbs in this direction since literally chapter two. I only make shit up as I go **some** of the time.  
2\. In all fairness to Charissa, it's explainable as a cultural misunderstanding. Ideas relating to relationships and fidelity and such are different in the culture she was raised in, Charissa isn't entirely crazy to think she isn't doing anything wrong. And that's without taking into account how Hermione being as "skittish" as she has been amounts to **drastic** mixed signals.  
_ _3\. This is a fanfiction of a series where the hero impulsively used a prohibited method of torture legally punishable by a lifetime of constant psychological torment because the victim **spat on someone**. The **hero** , who we're supposed to believe is **good**. And Charissa is the terrible person for having sex with someone who isn't her girlfriend? Please.  
Not that I think Charissa is completely golden here or anything — my personal ethics are very similar to Tracey's. It's just not nearly as damning as I anticipate some people will think it is._

 _By the way, edit finished as of now._

 _Until next time,  
~Wings_


	24. 4th Year — Those Who Walk With the Wind

_November 26th, 1994_

* * *

Hermione was really wishing she knew a partial silencing charm of some kind.

The arena the First Task was being held in was both absurdly large and surprisingly small at the same time. Absurdly large because the number of people who were seated in here was staggering — her original impression of a miniscule magical world had been well-shattered by now. Surprisingly small because she _knew_ roughly how many people were here, but it didn't _look_ big enough to fit all of them. She could only assume some clever space-expanding enchantments were involved.

Gazing across the steeply-angled stands actually sort of gave her a headache. If she just steadily looked at one thing, she didn't really notice. But if she gradually tracked her eyes across a single row or column, that's when it got weird. It was hard to explain, exactly. Looking a few degrees along a row, she'd see dozens of mages flick by, made up in all sorts of exotic fashions from all over magical Europe. But the problem was she saw more people going by than she really should. Her depth perception and the muscles moving her eyes said she'd shifted her view by so far, what she actually _saw_ gave an impression entirely different. It was giving her a headache.

And the noise wasn't helping. It was really damn loud in here. Thousands and thousands of voices chattering in dozens of languages, all turning into a harsh jumble of white noise. She could barely even understand the people sitting immediately around her. It was awful.

She really just wished they'd get on with the Task already.

Thankfully, she didn't have long to wait. Before her headache got completely unbearable, there was the shivering sense of a powerful enchantment coming to life, and she heard Dumbledore's voice, the bench beneath her shivering like she were sitting on a giant speaker. He welcomed everyone to the First Task, blah blah. Talking about how the Champions would go one at a time, in the order their names came out of the Goblet, blah blah. Explaining that the Task would involve—

Oh. Oh, my. That... She couldn't believe everyone involved in the planning of the Tournament had actually consented to that. Trying to steal an egg from a nesting dragon sounded like a really, _really_ bad idea. It'd be a miracle if everyone came out unharmed.

Only a couple minutes later... Okay, she wasn't sure how they did that. The center of the arena blurred, contorted, seeming to fold in on itself, then out from itself. It was very confusing to look at, was only making her headache worse. Then, she couldn't help a startled jump, grabbing at Charissa's arm next to her.

She'd never seen a real life dragon before. Though "dragon" was technically an inappropriate term — she'd noticed before the magical creatures were actually wyverns. While the European non-magical image of a dragon was a thick, bulky reptile with four legs and wings sprouting from the back, the living creatures were all slighter and longer, almost sinuous, wings in place of front limbs much like a bat, in certain places glittering scales raising from the skin in ridges and crests that seemed almost feather-like. She'd gotten a strangely avian impression of them from the beginning, actually, in everything from the tufts of raised scales, to the narrow sharpness of their heads, to the shape and placement of the claws of their rear limbs, to the contrasting, vibrant colouring they all seemed to have. But their bodies too long, too flexible, their adornment more hard scale than soft feather. Sort of an odd cross between serpent and bird, if that made sense.

Also extremely large, of course. Really _too_ large, the size itself implying magic. The dragon curled along a slight rise in the rocky ground, though proportionately thinner than she would expect for its length, had to be nine metres from snout to tail. It was somewhat hard to judge size perfectly from up here, especially with all the space-warping magic going on, but something like that. The thing was mostly a deep, vibrant red, but with brilliant gold crests in rings around its eyes, along the top of its head, rising in a few places along the spine, at the forward edges of the wings. And Hermione could _feel_ it, even from all the way up here. A subtle sense of unquenchable fire restrained, of violence and blood and death held just under the surface, some instinctual part of her that said only _danger_. No, no she did not want to get any closer to that thing, thank you very much.

She glanced over at Charissa to see an absent smile on her face, her eyes alight with what Hermione was rather sure was adoration. Not that she was entirely surprised — with Charissa's penchant for fire magic, and her far more martial personality, she didn't think it unusual she'd think pleasant the same impression Hermione found terrifying. She just shook her head to herself a little, turning back a little reluctantly to watch Rumenov face the Chinese Liondragon.

The crowd rose in cheers as the tall, dark-haired, awkward-looking man walked into the arena, looking tiny and pathetic in comparison to the dragon across from him. But he ignored the noise — lucky him, she was weighing the pros and cons of just deafening herself — and didn't even slow, walking steadily right toward the dangerous creature. When the dragon looked up at him, large black eyes widening at his approach, he casually pulled out his wand, and fired off two curses in quick succession. Almost simultaneously, they each hit square on one of the dragon's eyes.

The sound was horrible. Hermione winced, her bones vibrating under her skin, as the dragon let out a sharp, discordant screech, drawn in a long wail on and on and on. Even as it continued...well, screaming, she guessed, the dragon stumbled, and flailed, head shaking, spine curling and uncurling, limbs twitching, seeming entirely uncoordinated, in a shocking amount of pain considering it'd only been hit by two little curses from one man. The crowd fell into horrified silence, a few disapproving murmurs rising here and there — Hermione found herself agreeing with those without any conscious decision on her part — but Rumenov seemingly ignored them, focused on the dragon, slowly inching closer to where it lay thrashing over its next.

'Oh, no, that idiot.'

Hermione blinked at the odd tenor of the voice. She recognised it instantly, of course — Lily had come to watch the Task, sitting on Charissa's opposite side, Charissa's youngest brother Perry along with. Which had already caused some awkwardness. While it hadn't been required of them, the Hogwarts students had mostly grouped by their houses. Hermione and Charissa, a few of their friends and Charissa's relatives, they were all sitting at the boundary between the Ravenclaws and Slytherins. Linden was down buried amongst the Gryffindors with their father. The Potters were in the early stages of a divorce right now and, when Perry had left to go sit with Lily the second he'd spotted her, James had not looked pleased at all. They hadn't spoken, but if looks could curse.

But anyway, it was far too loud in here for them to actually try to talk to each other and be easily understood. So Lily had cast an interesting bit of magic on them all — she'd called it a "whispering charm" — that would take anything they said directly into the ears of everyone else. It did sound slightly weird, though, far too close against Hermione's head, with a faint sense of an echo about it. A handy charm, she guessed, but it just felt odd.

It was Jas who spoke first. 'Why, what did he do?'

'Look at the nest.' It could just be the weirdness of the charm, but Luna's voice was uncharacteristically flat, the usual airy lightness absent. 'Look carefully.'

Hermione frowned, narrowed her eyes, trying to pick out details under the erratically moving dragon. It only took a moment to notice it. Drawing in a gasp, she said, 'Did the dragon crush its own eggs?'

She heard Bella mutter something, but it was in a different language, she hadn't a clue even which one. By the way she said it, though, she was sure the girl was cursing.

'Language, Bella.' Hermione wondered to herself if Lily were scolding Bella for what was probably swearing, or simply telling her that hadn't been English — Bella had been having peculiar difficulty staying in the same language today. Knowing Lily, the latter seemed more likely. 'Rumenov had obviously been attempting to blind her, if only temporarily, so he could get the egg while she was disoriented. He apparently didn't account for how she'd react to the combination of agony and blindness.'

'But the eggs!' Hermione said, leaning around Charissa to look at Lily. 'Aren't dragons endangered?'

Yeah, looked like she hadn't needed to point that out at all — Lily, seeming somehow even more drawn and tired than usual, had a faint sense of sadness and disapproval about her. 'Mages don't call it that, but yes. Dragon conservationists are not going to be happy with losing that many eggs at once. It was foolish for the organisers to use nesting females, it was foolish for them to put them there with their _actual eggs_ , and it was foolish for Rumenov to use that curse without thinking the consequences through. Foolishness all around.'

Bella's snort echoed in Hermione's ears. 'Exactly what I expect from magical society by this point, honestly.'

Hermione was somewhat surprised when none of the magical-raised included in their charm bothered defending themselves.

Rumenov's victory ended up being rather anti-climactic: at one point in its pained convulsions, the dragon must have kicked the golden egg the Champions were to retrieve, because it went tumbling out onto the surrounding rock, where Rumenov quickly grabbed it. Then there was a bit of chaos as the dragon handlers came out to subdue the dragon, the arena contorting around them, returning the dragon and handlers both to...wherever the dragon had been before, she had no idea what sort of magic this was going on here. And then the judges were scoring Rumenov. Rather harshly, despite how he'd gotten through without a scratch — most of them apparently didn't take kindly to him, however unintentionally, destroying all those eggs.

There was a noticeable increase in noise, first surprised muttering and then conflicting cheers of agreement and shouts of disapproval, when the judge from Britain gave Rumenov a zero for the Task. Not that Hermione found that surprising. The judges were, apparently, all famous personages among their own nations, chosen to be as separated from the Champion from their own region as possible. Theirs was Síomha Raghnaill Ní Ailbhe, who Hermione knew was...well, an activist, she guessed, for Irish independence. Sort of a weird choice to represent the country, she thought, but oh well. But anyway, she was known to have rather extreme views about certain things. That she would penalise Rumenov so severely for carelessly breaking all of those eggs was not out of character.

Well, to be as accurate as possible, Ní Ailbhe didn't technically advocate for Irish independence specifically. The movement she practically led these days wanted to split the single United Council of Celtic Nations into two countries, one for the Gaelic people — the Irish and the Scottish — and one for the Brythonic people — the Welsh and the Breton and the English (they say British, from Brīþa, but they mean English). Since the Wizengamot was in Wales, and the Ministry was in England, they'd be on the Brythonic side, but since Hogwarts was in Scotland, it'd be on the Gaelic side. And it was more personal than that for a lot of people — what with magic and all, it didn't really matter where people lived so much. As an example, the Potters lived in Wales, and have for some time, but they were considered a Gaelic family (technically Norse–Gaelic, but still). And that wasn't even considering cases where Gaelic and Brythonic families had intermarried so many times by this point they considered themselves both or neither...

Yeah. There were reasons it was so controversial.

But she should stop thinking about politics. Recently, she'd been getting increasingly distracted by the subject — if only because the government was a corrupt, autocratic, bigoted cesspool she was slowly becoming convinced needed to be destroyed — but this wasn't really the moment to be thinking about that. There was a Tournament going on.

Her brain helpfully made the association with the phrase _pānem et circēnsēs_. She didn't think it was wholly appropriate, but still. Very helpful.

Hermione blinked as another dragon eventually appeared, this one giving off a similar sense of heat and violence, but the proportions slightly and colouration very different. An Opaleye, she recognised it immediately. This one was significantly longer than the previous — it was hard to tell for sure with the way it was curled up around its nest, but Hermione would guess up to half again as long as the Liondragon. The Opaleye was slighter, though, its frame narrow and almost even skeletal, enough she thought they probably weighed pretty close to the same, giving a sense more of quickness and grace than power. It was also, well, pretty-looking, scales a scintillating white that threw little flecks off rainbow light all across the arena. She'd heard before the Opaleye was the most beautiful of dragon species, and she now couldn't imagine the claim was wrong.

She also knew the Opaleye was one of the least aggressive. Which was probably why the thing didn't react much to Avju's appearance at all. It reoriented a bit, slithering around to face her, but just stared with colourful eyes, silently watching. Hermione noticed the Greek girl was wearing that same weird red, white, and black headband she had been when she was chosen Champion. As long as Lily was here, and before she could forget, Hermione asked, 'Does that headband mean anything, by the way? I noticed some of the Greeks were wearing it.'

'Ah, yes,' Lily said, sounding slightly distracted. 'I'm guessing she's a Unionist. It's a political movement going on in the area right now. They want to leave the ICW and join the Kemetic Union instead, which there are historical and cultural arguments for. What is she _doing_?'

Hermione hadn't any clue either. Avju had her wand out, and by the look of it was casting charm after charm after charm at her surroundings. But nothing was happening — at least, nothing visible. Avju was slowly inching toward the dragon, casting more and more ineffectual charms. By the angle her wand was getting to, the charms were starting to get close to the Opaleye, but nothing was—

The Opaleye jerked, chinks of rainbow light shuffling in a dizzying dance, shifted a bit, then let loose with a narrow stream of flame an unnaturally uniform red. Avju had clearly seen it coming, instantly ducking out of the way, crouching behind a low wall of granite a short distance from the nest. And she stayed there. It was hard to see from this angle, but it looked like Avju broke off a chunk of rock from the ground with a quick severing charm of some kind, then started doing something with it. She couldn't tell from here what.

While the dragon kept launching blasts of fire at the granite wall Avju was hiding behind, the stone on one side slowly starting to glow an angry red, Avju just sat there, working at her chunk of rock, seemingly unconcerned. After what had to be nearly a minute, Lily said, in an oddly breathy voice, ' _No_ , she isn't.'

'She isn't what?' from Jas.

'You know how they said Champions weren't allowed anything but their wand? I think she's bending the rules and enchanting her own _ḡiruś_.'

Hermione had a bad feeling all of a sudden. 'And what's a _ḡiruś_?'

It was Charissa who answered, without a hint of anything on her voice. 'A kind of enchanted dagger, used in sacrificial blood magic.'

'I think those were stasis charms earlier,' Luna said, sounding as light and casual as usual. 'So that's a good guess.'

There was silence in their whispering charm for a long moment, everyone processing that. Hermione certainly hadn't thought she'd be seeing _ritual blood magic_ today. She heard Bella mutter something that sounded suspiciously like ' _wicked_ ,' but she ignored that — she'd been distracted by another thought. 'Can she do that? Isn't ritual blood magic _extremely_ illegal?'

'It is here,' Lily said. 'It's legal where she's from.'

'But we're here, not there.'

'When travelling within the ICW, the law of a person's country of residence applies. She's fine.'

On first thought, that sort of seemed like a silly rule. Someone from a less regulated country could just come to Britain and do whatever crazy illegal dark magic they wanted. But, come to think of it, most of the things she would have a problem with people _using dark magic to do_ were independently still illegal — it wasn't like lifting the ban on deadly curses made murder perfectly fine, or permitting blood magic made that sort of coercion legal. So she guessed it didn't make that big of a difference. Turning it around to the user's perspective, she guessed it would be a bit ridiculous if, oh, what was a good example? Runic casting, runic casting was restricted here, permitted only to those who had been licensed to use it, but it wasn't some other places in the ICW. Conceivably, someone could be convicted under dark magic laws for using runic casting to do a _colour charm_. It would be a bit silly if Britain could convict a foreigner for using totally innocuous, harmless magic they were legally permitted to use in their home country.

Especially since conviction here meant a sentence to Azkaban. Hermione was well aware the other ICW nations did not look kindly on her country for that. Hell, _she_ didn't look kindly on her country for that. Even assuming they absolutely never convicted an innocent person ever — she didn't believe that for a second, but for the purpose of argument — she was still positive a sentence to Azkaban constituted psychological torture of barbaric severity. She could not believe that was legal. Because, in fact, in magical Britain it _was_ legal. She'd looked it up, and the ban of cruel and unusual punishment in English law was first enacted by the Convention Parliament in 1689. While the Statute of Secrecy wasn't yet in force and the magical government still _technically_ under the Crown (sort of), the Wizengamot had sided with James II and VII in the Glorious Revolution — the magical government hadn't recognised the legitimacy of the non-magical Parliament who'd essentially exiled James in the favour of William and Mary, and neither had they recognised the legitimacy of _any_ of the successor governments.

Interestingly, the Wizengamot still considered themselves allies of the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland — allies, not subjects, it was complicated — but they considered the throne vacant, and the current government illegitimate. Under magical law, the United Kingdom was essentially an occupying force — the Republic of Ireland as well, to a somewhat lesser degree. Of course, they did have _de facto_ control over the territory, nobody would argue that, so they were almost always dealt with as though that were not the case. It was very complicated, and very strange.

But that wasn't really the point. The point was that, yes, some _specific forms_ of torture had been illegalised in magical Britain, but torture _in general_ had not been. To the point that the _only_ prison in the country featured what amounted to constant psychological torture for the entirety of the sentence. It was the _government doing that_. Virtually every other magical nation in _the entire world_ thought, correctly, that that was absolutely reprehensible — in fact, the ICW had been demanding for almost two centuries Britain close Azkaban on a nearly annual basis. There were reasons no one else took Dumbledore seriously when he went critiquing foreign nations on things like their own more liberal regulations on dark magic, that sort of thing. Glass houses and all that.

So, honestly? She'd understand if the entire reason the rule existed was to prevent foreign nationals from being sent to Azkaban. It wouldn't surprise her.

Not that she necessarily _agreed_ with ritual blood magic being legal. Nor did she really want to watch it. When Avju was done with whatever enchanting she was doing... Well, it wasn't pretty. Most of the ritual, or what she assumed was part of the ritual, was actually rather plain. Avju ran the knife she'd transfigured and enchanted down her left arm from elbow to wrist, flat of the blade against her skin, her lips moving in some kind of incantation. Again, and again, five times in total. Even from here, Hermione could feel some sort of magic rising, heavy and thick and oppressive. Then, in a flurry of sudden motion, she flipped the knife around in her hand, sprung to her feet, came out from behind her hiding spot to face the dragon head-on, then jabbed the knife point-first into the middle of her forearm.

The impression of the magic Hermione got was too distant and murky, she could more tell it was there, and that it was powerful, than she could get any distinct feeling from it. But from how Luna, in front of her and to her right, seemed to cringe away even from here, she could only guess she wouldn't have liked it if she could feel it. Her first visual impression was that it looked incredibly fake. Almost like something out of one of those terrible gory films. When the knife struck deep, seemingly slipping between Avju's ulna and radius somehow to poke out the other side of her arm, deep crimson blood rose in spurts and sprays that...no, that was completely unrealistic, there was far too much of it. That wouldn't happen. The improbable volume of droplets curved in mid air, arcing back to her right hand in steady streams, an odd white-purple glow growing as her blood gathered around her fingers. Pulling the knife out of the hole in her arm only accelerated the process, the pulsing light around her knife hand quickly growing almost dazzlingly bright, enough it was possible she imagined the tiny rainbow sparks glittering along the thin filaments of blood still trailing from wound to stone.

Yeah, it wasn't really fun to watch.

After a moment, Avju made some kind of gesture — it was hard to see what through the spell glow — and her charmed blood went shooting off at the Opaleye. The dragon had apparently been a little distracted by the bit of magic, but now it jerked, trying to dodge. And was struck anyway, crimson and purple blood splashing across the gleaming white scales of its head. After a moment, the blood vanished, seemingly sinking down under the dragon's skin. For a couple seconds, nothing happened, the dragon simply quivering in place, a low rumbling running through the arena.

And then, smoothly and calmly, the dragon slinked off of the nest, leaving it open for Avju to claim.

Over the noise of the crowd cheering as Avju casually walked up to the nest — Hermione noticed her left arm, while still a mess of smeared red, wasn't dripping blood anymore, it must have healed somehow — she heard Charissa over the charm say, 'Any chance you can teach me that?'

Now _that_ was a scary thought, Charissa with blood magic at her disposal. As if she couldn't already be scary enough when she felt like it.

Apparently, Lily didn't think so. 'I know how to do it, yes,' she said. 'It's restricted in Britain, though, so we'd need to arrange that apprenticeship first.'

Bella let out an annoyed-sounding scoff. 'Damn. Could you just leave a book out for me somewhere?'

'No, no, we could both get sent to Azkaban if I did that. I suppose you could learn it illegally if you want, but I won't help you.' Well, _that_ was something at least. The idea of Bella with blood magic was even scarier.

Avju, her arm curled around the golden egg, walked over to stand next to the dragon's head. She gave a low bow toward the judges, her open hand out wide and everything. At the same time, the Opaleye moved, wings first flaring up then dipping down with its head in what was obviously supposed to be its own bow. The noisy response from the crowd was mixed — some cheering, some laughing, some booing — all jumbled together in a deafening, cacophonous mass. As Avju walked away, she tossed her freshly-enchanted knife above her head, her wand appearing in her hand, and blasted the bloody thing out of the air. With what looked like a dispel over her shoulder, the dragon seemingly regained control of itself, slithering back over to its nest with a startled jerk. At least it was temporary, Hermione guessed.

But anyway, Bella was still complaining under her breath. Most of it was in other languages, but the part she understood was something about, 'stupid bloody wankers, weak little fucks banning everything just 'cause they suck it.' It wasn't English, and Bella spoke French with a somewhat peculiar accent — Normand, maybe? — but she understood it just fine.

'Don't get too bitter there, Bella,' Charissa said, sounding distinctly amused. 'I'd be shocked if Dora couldn't find someone to teach you officially. And, well, I'm always an option later down the road.'

Bella abruptly sounded far more cheerful, enough Hermione knew just from the sound of her voice she was grinning. 'Oh, all right, then. Never mind.'

Hermione just let out a sigh. _Yes, let's all learn dangerous dark magic!_ Sounded like a great idea.

* * *

Walking off the platform after being given her scores, sa'Çyr Filʊ̄s couldn't help smiling to herself. It was almost like they thought she cared what they thought of her.

If the judges were perfectly rational and unbiased, she should have gotten the highest scores. There was no doubt about that. Rumenov deserved the penalty he'd gotten, for crushing all those eggs. She hadn't expected sa'Avju to do that well, but it had taken her much longer. Troelsen should be in third above Rumenov — he'd managed to get the egg rather quick, but he'd been clipped by a blast of fire as he did, the only one injured so far. sa'Diggory hadn't gone yet, but she didn't expect too much from him.

She'd easily sung her dragon to sleep, and had gotten the egg in hardly two minutes. By any rational reasoning, she'd done the best. Of course, she hadn't done the best _fairly_. Humans were capable of song-based casting, yes, but individuals who actually knew how to do it were exceedingly rare. And the amount of power she could put behind it was really cheating by human standards. It wasn't _fair_ , but it was still so. Score-wise, she was in third. The judges had claimed they were only penalising her for spillover — considering the spell should theoretically have affected anyone who could hear her voice, and she'd only put the dragon to sleep and no one in the audience, she thought she'd actually controlled her magic exceptionally well. But there had certainly been some symptoms. Not a lot, but some.

With the way the judges, the Celtic and Germanic ones in particular, had looked at her while giving their pronouncement, she was sure that wasn't the _real_ reason. But she'd just smiled back and curtsied all pretty. The bigotry amused her more than anything. Did they really think she cared what they thought? Did they really think she _needed_ those points? They'd already been told their score only mattered so much as it allowed them into the Third Task earlier, whoever finished it first would win. She was rather certain she'd win even if she were coming in last at the time. It was starting to look like Avju might present a problem, but she was still confident.

And she would quite enjoy shoving it in their faces.

But this wasn't the time to think about that. This would now be the perfect opportunity to make her move. Filʊ̄s had seen her, earlier in the day, with the delegation from the Celtic government. Felt her, more like — the being looked like any other human, and they'd been doing an excellent job of masking their magic, but hiding from one of her people was virtually impossible. There were reasons many didn't really want empaths around.

Filʊ̄s slipped through the stands, climbing up a few levels of stairs at the back, moving around clear to the opposite side of the amphitheatre. She knew she was starting to approach the correct spot when she started seeing guards. Order of Aurora, mostly, from several different countries judging by the uniforms, but a few individuals here and there from national police forces. As she approached, she got a few glances — wary ones from the police, mostly just curious ones from the Aurors. But they let her through without incident, and she stepped into the segment of the stands reserved for the judges and government representatives.

This place was far nicer than the stands elsewhere, not that she was particularly surprised. Almost seemed an enclosed room, warm wooden walls lined with tracery in ICW colours, tables near the back bearing food and drink, soft armchairs looking out over the field. There were a number of people inside, chattering in various languages, but few took much notice of her. After a moment, she spotted the Celtic delegation, seated in a clump of seats facing outside, and made her way for them.

There she was. She, Filʊ̄s thought that might be the right word. With species she wasn't familiar with, it could be hard to tell for sure. The vague feeling she got from the disguised immortal was one she recognised from other species she'd met with two sexes as being more feminine. Not the soft, gentle kind of feminine, though, but more the sense of fierce, violent territoriality wrapped up in a sensual shell she'd seen in a few species. Or variably — she'd noticed before some species had a tendency toward both kinds. She'd known immediately this person, hidden within the guise of a short, slight human woman with an unremarkable face and plain dirty-blonde hair, was _not_ someone she wanted on the bad side of.

But avoiding the disfavour of any immortal was generally a good idea, really.

Before she could even think to say anything, she was interrupted. By sa'Ailbhe. 'You didn't come here to contest your scoring, did you?' Filʊ̄s glanced down at the woman, hiding her annoyance. sa'Ailbhe, she knew, was a rather imposing woman by human standards. Not necessarily due to her stature, though she was rather tall. It was more the harsh beauty in her pale, sharp face, her gleaming black hair, hard dark eyes, the predatory grace in the way she sat slouched in her chair, glass of wine held casually in long fingers. And, most particularly, the invigorating sense of power washing off of her in waves. sa'Ailbhe was what humans called a sorceress, she knew, an individual of exceptional magical strength. One of the youngest in Britain, in fact — she thought the only recognised one of their kind younger than sa'Ailbhe at the moment was Lady Black, but she was moontouched, which was basically cheating.

Give her another year or so, and that Charissa Potter would probably be taking Lady Black's place as the youngest British sorceress. But she was Blessed, which was _massively_ cheating.

Filʊ̄s had heard some interesting rumours about sa'Ailbhe, actually. It was widely known she was a foundling — her parents weren't her blood. There was a popular rumour floating around that she was the daughter of the Night Queen of Ireland, one of a small number of humans known to have somehow achieved immortality. Filʊ̄s didn't think it likely. Far as she knew, the Night Queen hadn't been seen or heard from in over a century — she had something of a reputation for disappearing for a century or two at a time, then rising in a decades-long storm of chaos and bloodshed, before again vanishing without a trace. It was still an interesting rumour, though.

But anyway, sa'Ailbhe was still talking at her. 'I certainly hope not, because I don't plan on changing my mind.'

Checking to make sure all traces of her magic were as firmly contained as she could make them, Filʊ̄s smiled into sa'Ailbhe's stony stare. When she replied, she consciously exaggerated a French accent just a little bit — she'd noticed before it tended to make people write her off a little easier. 'Excuse me, _madame_ , I don't mean to be rude—' A phrase she included entirely so she could slip one of those weird rhotic sounds in. '—but I did not come to speak to you.' Filʊ̄s continued down the row past her, smirking to herself at the look of surprise crossing the woman's face.

And she was standing before the Celtic head of government, a rather unimpressive little man with a round, pink face named sa'Fudge. Filʊ̄s didn't know a whole lot about him and, honestly, she didn't particularly care to. She wasn't really here to talk to him. Her eyes flicked only for an instant to the disguised immortal sitting in a chair behind and to his side, everything about her screaming _humble assistant_. Not that Filʊ̄s bought it for an instant. She turned again to sa'Fudge, gave him a quick little bow. 'Minister.'

For a short moment, sa'Fudge examined her, but then he popped to his feet with a surprising amount of energy, a brilliant grin spreading across his face. 'Ah, Miss Delacour, to what do I owe the pleasure?'

Filʊ̄s blinked in surprise. She hadn't expected sa'Fudge to be this happy to see her. She thought about what she knew of the man for a moment, then nodded to herself. Right. The Celtic government might not be too keen on non-human races, and sa'Fudge might be deeply involved with people of that attitude, but the Çyr were also rather wealthy, and well-connected on the Continent. She guessed that made her good enough. 'I merely wished to express our thanks on my clan's behalf.' She couldn't help smiling a little wider at the confusion on sa'Fudge's face. 'We are fully aware there are people in your government who are, shall we say, not particularly friendly to our people.'

'Oh, now, Miss Delacour,' sa'Fudge said in an awkward rush, looking distinctly uncomfortable, 'that's not anything that, ah—'

'Don't worry about it, Minister. As I said, we know. With my selection as Champion, near on my full clan is now camped out in the Valley, and plenty of our people from other clans. I can imagine there are elements in your government who are not at all pleased about that.' The pink in sa'Fudge's face was darkening in evident embarrassment, but he didn't seem to have the will to disagree. 'However, despite the feelings some of your people no doubt hold, we have been treated by your government with nothing but the utmost courtesy.' That was somewhat of a stretch, but she was being diplomatic here. 'There have been a few minor incidents in the Valley since our arrival, but your law enforcement have done their honest best to protect our right to stay unmolested.' That one was actually true, officials from the DLE had been surprisingly fair so far. 'We know we are not wanted, and we know fair treatment could have been easy to arrange, so my clan has asked me to relay our appreciation.'

She followed that with a gesture sa'Fudge doubtlessly wouldn't recognise, probably just looked like a slightly florid bow to him. It felt very awkward doing this in human form, but she ignored the weirdness. Even as she dipped somewhat, she spoke in a language she knew he would not understand, would probably assume was her native tongue. But it wasn't. She said in Common, 'I have need to speak with you, Your Grace.'

While sa'Fudge blathered on about how it was nothing, he'd been all too happy to, she saw the disguised Ancient tilt her head slightly, eyes flicking up to her. For a long moment, she only stared. Then... Well, it was hard to explain, exactly. It was a whispering of magic, hardly even detectable, slipping against the edge of her mind. Before she could even consider whether or not it was a good idea to let it in, it seeped through, an image appearing in her mind's eye of the sun setting, then a montage flicking by with dizzying speed. She realised it was Hogwarts Castle, gliding through the towering entrance hall, up a single flight of stairs, down a hall, around a couple corners, then into a somewhat neglected-looking classroom. The image of the setting sun appeared again, the message clear. As the tendril of thought retreated, Filʊ̄s gave her a tiny little nod.

As soon as she could extract herself politely, Filʊ̄s pulled away, heading off out of the amphitheatre. Forcing the niggling of anxiety down, she called up the fire within, stepped through the flames straight into her room at her clan's camp. And started getting ready.

She had a conversation with a minor deity to prepare for, and she hadn't a lot of time.

* * *

Fighting a losing war against the anxiety flaring in her chest, Filʊ̄s stepped inside the room the immortal had directed her to, noting with an odd mix of disappointment and relief that the room was empty. She pulled the door closed behind her and, after a moment of consideration, stepped further inside, tugging absent-mindedly at the tassels on her tunic. On her way here, she'd gotten a few odd looks from humans, but she supposed that's just what she should expect wearing the native dress of her people — it wasn't something humans saw very often. Though, come to think of it, it could have been something else distracting them. The tunic was rather loose and thin, not the most concealing thing in existence. Since she'd be here meeting one of the Ancients, though she wasn't yet sure which race specifically, she'd just thought it appropriate.

She was just wondering how long she'd have to wait for the unnamed woman to show up when she felt a touch at her lower back. Before she could even think to move there was a wash of dizzying magic racing through her. As she teetered in place a little, the room around her blurring into indistinction, she felt her muscles twitch in little fits and starts, an itch racing across her skin. She realised with a start whatever magic this was was interfering with her disguise somehow, reaching past her human shell to her true form within. She hadn't even known it was possible to circumvent her people's natural camouflage.

After an uncomfortable couple seconds that seemed to last forever, the magic ended, her sense of the room and herself returning to normal. 'Sorry about that, little bird,' said a low, smooth, casual-sounding voice, speaking in Common. 'Had to be sure you are who you look like.'

Filʊ̄s realised with some chagrin she hadn't been waiting on the immortal to arrive at all — she'd been here already, somehow hidden. The unassuming human figure stepped into her view, gracefully walking with arms crossed behind her back. In mid-step, there was a flicker of magic, and the human disguise was gone, smoothly replaced with something entirely different. Well, perhaps not _entirely_ different. While the proportions weren't exactly the same, the woman's species shared the same general body plan humans had: two legs, two arms, trunk and head, smooth skin unbroken by fur or feather, hair relegated to the top and back of the head. While it was rather hard to tell for certain — while some species showed greater divergence in secondary sexual characteristics, some had hardly any at all, and she was guessing this race was closer to the latter — Filʊ̄s was almost certain the figure was female.

She would never be confused for a human, though. Even if the obviously different proportions in limbs and face didn't make it clear she was something quite else, the colouring would give it away. Her skin was a deep, perfect matte black, eyes a sharp blood red, shoulder-length hair a vibrant, gleaming purple — save for the bangs, anyway, which were charmed an unnatural snowy white. Filʊ̄s knew which species this was. They were called in Common Iʃẽıǵò, which Filʊ̄s could only assume was based on an endonym, one of the thirty immortal races. She'd never met one before, simply heard them described.

That the disguised immortal she'd stumbled across happened to be an Iʃẽıǵò was curious. She'd heard stories of an Iʃẽıǵò, usually referred to by the epithet Stormbreather — nobody seemed to know her real name — who'd been wandering around Earth for millennia, appearing here and there throughout history. Far as anyone could tell, she'd been keeping an eye on humanity, teaching them the occasional bit of magic, prodding them along. Nobody was entirely sure why. She couldn't help wondering if this was in fact Stormbreather she was looking at right now.

Even as she took in the immortal, she only dimly noticed her instinctive camouflage had reacted, adapting the slightly unfamiliar form of an Iʃẽıǵò. She absently hoped that wasn't too presumptuous, but she couldn't really help it.

But anyway, she should probably respond. She took a second to remember what the immortal had said, then another to formulate an answer. 'Ah, you needn't apologise to me, Your Grace. I am at your service.'

'Yes, yes.' Having casually paced halfway across the room, the Iʃẽıǵò whirled around to face her again. The air was instantly thick with power, oppressive magic flooding against her in suffocating waves. Filʊ̄s let out a shuddering gasp, trying not to shrink away from the hard, steady glare the immortal was suddenly giving her, and only partially succeeding. 'Before this goes any further, little bird, I need to know: who do you walk with?'

She swallowed, trying to force her suddenly shaking throat steady. She couldn't help it. She was used to spending all her time around humans. There were humans who were more powerful than her, yes, but fewer and fewer as she matured. She was abruptly _very much aware_ the being before her could obliterate her in an instant without even really trying. 'I walk w-with the wind.'

The oppressive sense of limitless magic restrained abruptly vanished, leaving Filʊ̄s feeling distinctly unbalanced. 'Excellent,' the immortal said, her voice suddenly warm and bright. 'I know your kind usually are—' With a graceful twirl, she spun around to fall into a seat on what would be an instructor's desk if this room were still used. '—I just had to be sure. You understand. It was Filʊ̄s, right, of the Çyr?'

'Yes, Your Grace.' She hesitated for a second, then slipped into one of the student desks in the front row. 'Is there something I should call you?'

The immortal let out a low hum, cocking her head a little. 'I suppose that depends on what you mean by _should_. I am a Duwaj, but I don't particularly care for the proper etiquette and all. I've picked up a few epithets over the millennia, but "Stormbreather" is the most well-known. That would be fine.'

For long moments, Filʊ̄s could only stare in shock. _Duwaj_? But... They were one of the Thirty, the holy family of the Iʃẽıǵò. She...

Filʊ̄s abruptly realised she was in the presence of royalty. That... She hadn't expected _that_. What was one of the Duwaj even _doing_ here? And alone, at that. She didn't understand at all. This whole situation didn't make any sense. Of course, it _already_ hadn't made any sense, with someone having Blessed a human _without telling them_ , but now there was a Duwaj on Earth for some reason, a Duwaj who also... And she belatedly realised just then that, yes, she was talking to Stormbreather, and Stormbreather was a Duwaj. Somehow, _that_ had never come up in the stories she'd heard about her.

She resisted the urge to rub at her suddenly aching head. This evening had managed to go completely insane very quickly.

'As you say, Stormbreather.' It felt exceedingly odd talking to someone from one of the Thirty without any of the proper honorifics — honestly, that she was _talking to someone from one of the Thirty_ was by itself surreal — but she'd been indirectly told not to, so...

'All right, then.' Stormbreather turned away for a moment, and... Well, it was very peculiar. She sang, a short, warbling phrase layered with some sort of magic Filʊ̄s couldn't interpret. A moment later, there was a burst of light and fire, and suddenly there was a phoenix in the room, alighting with casual grace atop a corner of the same desk Stormbreather sat on. Normally, Filʊ̄s would have been surprised by a _second_ member of one of the immortal races appearing from nowhere, but she figured she was becoming deadened to shock by this point. 'Hello, old friend,' Stormbreather said to the phoenix, affection clear on her voice.

The large, elegant bird, so full of magic and life it almost seemed to glow in oranges and reds, twittered back in some birdsong-based language she couldn't interpret. Somehow, though, the meaning was still clear, intent carried across the air on scorching tendrils of power. The phoenix had been about to go to sleep, Filʊ̄s gathered, and was wondering what Stormbreather had wanted his presence for so badly. At least, she was pretty sure the phoenix was male, that was the vague impression she got.

'Our little bird here,' Stormbreather said, cocking her head at Filʊ̄s, 'has something she feels I need to know. Since we're in your house, I thought you should be invited.' Filʊ̄s blinked at that — _his_ house?

The phoenix made an odd snuffling noise, then settled lower onto the desk, folding a wing over his head, seemingly making to go to sleep.

Stormbreather scoffed under her breath, but the note of familiar affection was still there. 'Insolent bloody pigeon. Anyway,' she said, turning to Filʊ̄s again, 'what exactly is this thing you need to speak to me about?' Filʊ̄s hesitated, her eyes tracking back to the phoenix. Stormbreather obviously noticed, waving a hand in dismissal. 'Don't mind him, he's with us.'

That was mildly surprising — his race walked with the day, for the most part. But, fine, she'd just take Stormbreather at her word. 'I have stumbled upon something of a delicate situation, and am not sure how to handle it on my own. I noticed you in the Celtic Minister's entourage, and thought I would ask.' The immortal just nodded, so Filʊ̄s continued, trying not to look too uncomfortable. 'I found a Blessed, a student at this school.'

The casual air Stormbreather had been giving off immediately sharpened, red eyes turned to stare steadily at her. 'You mean, a human?' Filʊ̄s just nodded, somewhat intimidated all over again by the immortal's sudden focus. 'Who?'

'Charissa. She's a Potter.'

Slowly, Stormbreather closed her eyes, one hand raising a moment later, to rub at the side of her face. After a few seconds, she said, 'She wouldn't happen to be the daughter of Lily Evans? the Auror who took out that Dark Lord recently?'

'Yes.' She hadn't known that for sure at the time, but after her disastrous confrontation with the girl, she'd done a bit of research on her and her family. 'But that's not all.'

'I was worried it might not be.'

Filʊ̄s winced, but went on anyway. 'Whoever Blessed her, they did it without her knowledge. She doesn't know who Blessed her. She doesn't know that the Blessing even exists, and hardly anything about the Thirty at all.'

Stormbreather stared at her in silence for a moment, head slightly tilted. 'I'm guessing she told you that. What did you do then?'

'I didn't want whoever did it to think I was interfering, so I, ah, wiped her memory of the conversation.'

A slight expression of amusement crossing the immortal's face, she said, 'Feeling a bit guilty, are we?'

'I just don't like—' Filʊ̄s broke off there, not entirely sure how to explain.

'It's fine, child, I'm just teasing you a little.' Stormbreather turned to look at the phoenix, who hadn't even twitched since settling in. 'I don't suppose you could take a moment to confirm that for me at some point?'

The phoenix didn't move, but he did let out a short, affirmative-sounding twitter.

'All right.' Stormbreather turned back to her, let out a short sigh. 'I believe we can be almost certain whoever Blessed young Charissa is one of our people. I can't imagine anyone from either of the other factions would stoop so low as to claim a human.' It hadn't really been asked for, but Filʊ̄s nodded in agreement with the slightly sarcastic statement anyway — she'd come to the same conclusion. 'I'm not entirely sure what their motivation was, especially so far as not informing her goes. It's quite likely we have someone out there intentionally making a nuisance of themselves, but it would hardly be the first time. A rather extreme prank to be pulling, I suppose, but there's no accounting for taste.

'I don't know _why_ whoever Blessed the girl decided not to tell her about it, but I don't particularly care. You have my permission to tell her. Not everything — some of the more intimate details should probably be explained by whichever clan claimed her — but the general outline would be fine. However, it _is_ possible that whoever Blessed her is watching. So, I would suggest not going out of your way to inform her. I suppose what I'm really saying is you needn't hide it should it somehow come up again. It's possible whoever it is may take offense anyway, but I'll spread the word you're under my protection. Does that sound agreeable?'

Oh. Well. Yes, that was fine. Great, even. Filʊ̄s imagined for a pleasant moment how her family would react if she told them Stormbreather, who had also apparently been a Duwaj the whole time without anybody knowing, had taken her under her protection. Yes, that would be fun. Then she hesitated for a moment, drawing a breath in through her teeth. It probably wouldn't matter. 'To be honest, she'll likely remember before too long. I couldn't simply erase the memory — she's too powerful. I isolated it instead, but that won't last very long. A year, maybe, but probably less.'

Head tilting slightly, Stormbreather was giving her what was probably supposed to be a curious look — it could be hard to tell sometimes, since body language was not at all consistent between species, but Filʊ̄s had extremely good intuition for these things. 'She's too powerful for a memory charm? I hadn't realised there was such a thing.'

She shrugged. 'She has a familiar, which complicates things. And, judging by the feel of her, I think she has a latent talent for mind magic. She was resisting me, and I'm not even sure she realised she was doing it. I had trouble seducing her, even.'

' _Really_?' Stormbreather turned away a little again, a grin splitting her lips. After a moment, Filʊ̄s realised her knee-jerk interpretation of the expression was likely wrong. She was far too used to humans. Humans were rather peculiar, in that showing of teeth in this particular way was often taken as a friendly gesture. In most species, similar expressions were threatening, or predatory. Which was probably why Stormbreather had looked a few degrees away from her before doing it. 'Well. If this girl has even half the talent and spirit of her mother, this should be very interesting.'

There was another snuffling sound from the phoenix. With a flourish of feather and fire, he lifted off into the air, silently traversing only a few feet to settle on Stormbreather's shoulder. And then he was twittering again, his meaning again clear without discretely interpretable words. He'd heard his human friend talking about this girl, apparently. She'd already shown skill with elemental and black magic, and a great natural talent for aggravating powerful people.

'So,' Stormbreather said, a hint of amusement on her voice, 'exactly like her mother, then?'

No, the phoenix didn't think so. Her mother was nicer. And prettier.

Stormbreather gave the phoenix a light smack on his chest with the back of her hand — he let out a light squawk, ruffling his wings once. 'Tell me, I forget: how long does it take phoenixes to grow up, exactly?'

The phoenix lifted his wings once, tilting his head, in what Filʊ̄s guessed was probably an imitation of a shrug. He sang again, of the _circle-without-end_ and _fire-that-renews_ and _forever-youth_.

'And you're not just using that as an excuse to act like a fledgling for all of eternity?'

Now the phoenix was singing about possibly relieving himself on her clothes. Filʊ̄s had to clap a hand over her mouth to keep herself from laughing. It was just so _silly_ , an immortal saying something like that.

Stormbreather sent her a quick exasperated look. 'Don't encourage him.' Then she turned back to the phoenix, letting out an odd, hissing sigh. 'What am I going to do with you?'

When the phoenix sang again, it was with a slightly different tone. It was hard to tell for sure, but it seemed far more serious, almost mournful. He sang of the passing of ages, the sun setting on one day and rising on another. The solidifying of a plot, one devised by self-righteous and tyrannical actors, and they few arrayed in opposition. Diverse in species, in abilities, in desires. Not even necessarily united in action, motivated independently, but certainly in purpose: to fight against those who would clip their wings, hold them from flying free on the ephemeral support of the wind. Those who would fight should band together, for they were common spirits, and because they must.

Honestly, Filʊ̄s had absolutely no clue what he was talking about. But what seemed confusing nonsense to her obviously meant something to Stormbreather. An odd sense of sadness about the immortal, she lifted a hand, fingers stroking lightly along softly glowing feathers. 'Yes,' she said, her soft, musical voice lower, more distant. 'I suppose you're right about that.'

Curious what exactly they were talking about, but afraid it would be too presumptuous to ask, Filʊ̄s merely sat there, letting the silence stretch. And stretch. When a couple minutes had passed without either of the Ancients saying anything, or even glancing in her direction, she decided to take that as a dismissal. She got to her feet, went to the door. She hesitated for a moment at the threshold, just in case Stormbreather called her to stop, but then slipped out.

Yeah. Her grandmother was right. Immortals were _weird_.

* * *

Síomha Raghnaill Ní Ailbhe — _Woah, Irish name, what are you doing in here? Síomha (IPA:_ /'ʃi:.(ə).və/ _, roughly "_ _ **shee**_ _-vuh") is the given name, Ailbhe (IPA:_ /'alʲ.(ə).vʲə/ _, roughly "_ _ **all**_ _-vuh") is a surname, the Ní is the same thing as Ó but for a girl, and Raghnaill (IPA:_ /'ɾˠəi.n̪ˠəlʲ/ _, roughly "_ _ **rye**_ _-null") is an extra thing that means her mother is named Raghnailt_ _. Pretty sure nothing there is outlandishly wrong, but I don't speak Irish, so who knows._

 _Kemetic — Usually, when European mages say "Egyptian", they mean the ancient civilisation up until the collapse of the old monarchy. This is what they call the modern people. "Kemet" is what the ancient Egyptians called their own country, though mispronounced — it would have been closer to Kūmit (IPA:_ /'ku:.mɪt/ _), but that_ _ **is**_ _a guess (they didn't write vowels for the most part). In the modern language, it's actually Xēmi (IPA:_ /'xe.mə/ _), which is_ _ **less**_ _of a guess (taken from Coptic, they did write vowels by then)._

 _Kemetic Union — A supranational organisation uniting the magical nations of the Middle East, most of Africa, and extending a bit into southern and central Asia. Much like the ICW, which is mostly just Europe (excluding Anatolia, the Caucasus, and much of the Pontic–Caspian steppe, all part of the Union instead), the Union is mostly concerned with maintaining the Statute of Secrecy and mediating conflicts between member states. A few nations from the Union, Turkey and Egypt as examples, are also observers in the ICW. A few ICW nations, including Greece, have the same status in the Union._

Ḡiruś (IPA: ? /ŋiɾ.uʃ ?) — _Sumerian, made up from slapping together_ ḡir(i) _, meaning knife, and_ uś _, meaning "blood" or "to die". Hence, "blood(/death)-knife". Not an expert in Sumerian, so might not be perfect._

[cruel and unusual punishment] — _In case anyone was considering commenting, this isn't an Americanism: the phrase first appeared in the 1689 Bill of Rights passed by the Convention Parliament, and was later borrowed into the US Constitution. I did actually do the research on that ramble. Because I'm a nerd like that._

sa' — _Fleur is interpreting Avju, Diggory, Ní Ailbhe, and Fudge's surnames as clannames, and thus uses the proper terminology in her native language to refer to them. (The clan would be Avju, a person from the clan would be sa'Avju.) The magical British House structure is actually very similar to carīdwð clans, so she's not even wrong in the case of the last three. Rumenov and Troelsen, however, are patronymics and not clannames, so they don't get the same prefix._

Moontouched — _Fae term for metamorphmagi. I thought it was obvious from context, but decided to clarify just in case._

Night Queen of Ireland — _In case anyone is wondering, yes, I am talking about the Morríghan. Yes, she's a real person, and yes, she's been around for a_ _ **very**_ _long time. And she isn't the only one — immortal humans are extremely rare, but they do exist._

Iʃẽıǵò (IPA: /ɪ˨.ʃẽ˧˩ɰ̊.ɠɔ˧˥/) — _Unless you happen to speak one of a small number of African languages or Sindhi, your chances of pronouncing this correctly are approximately zero. I came up with the word and I can't do it perfectly. For non-nerds, "ee-shay-_ _ **go**_ " _is good enough. Just to clarify, yes, the black elf who Blessed Charissa is another individual of the same species._

Duwaj (IPA: /ðʊ˧˩.ʋəj˧˥˩/) — _Roughly "thoo-why". Fleur correctly identifies this is as one of the thirty ruling clans of the Elder Fae._

[ _second_ member of one of the immortal races] — _Just to confirm, phoenixes are one of the thirty races of Elder Fae. The difference in the count humans know and the correct one is there are two races of Elder Fae that are native to Earth, while the other twenty-eight are from elsewhere. The other Earth-native race are the thunderbirds, their closest evolutionary cousins. And, yes, this particular phoenix is Fawkes._

* * *

 _Wonder if there was a way I could have hinted at **more** future shit..._

 _I did say I'd have another TRW chapter tonight, but that's almost certainly not happening. It's been resisting me, and is also going longer than I originally thought, so...I'll try to have it by the weekend._

 _Until next time  
~Wings_


	25. Fourth Year — Cherries and Rosemary

_This is very late, I know. I hate my brain. Bluh._

* * *

 _December 20th, 1994_

* * *

Hermione couldn't help frowning a little at Charissa's cat, laid blissfully relaxed across the top of Charissa's trunk in front of her bed. 'You're still here?'

Augí didn't answer — not that she'd expected him to, he was a bloody _cat_. He didn't even open his eyes. His snow-white tail did give a slight, irritated-looking twitch, though, as if to say, _Obviously_.

'What are you doing hanging around here, anyway?' Hermione hadn't been able to help suspicious thoughts when she'd noticed Charissa's cat lingering. On two separate occasions, Charissa had mentioned that Augí could share his memories with her when he felt like it. The thought that Charissa would spy on her changing through Augí was a bit ridiculous — and also unnecessary, when she thought about it, considering they _had_ been sharing a bed- and bathroom for the majority of the last three years — but she'd had peculiar trouble shaking the thought. So she'd done everything in the bathroom instead. She'd needed to be in there for other reasons anyway, so it wasn't going that far out of her way, still.

Augí only responded so far as to open a single eye a sliver, staring at her through the narrow gap. His eye closed again after a moment, and he shifted in place a little, resettling himself on Charissa's trunk, and proceeded to ignore her.

Which was just sort of a cat thing to do, she guessed.

She figured she was mostly ready now. She could probably start making her way down to the Great Hall. After slipping on her shoes, she couldn't help giving herself a lingering look in their full-length mirror, feeling the whole situation was a bit surreal.

It had happened two weeks ago now, during the duelling tournament. Charissa had just lost in an absolutely terrifying duel in the singles quarterfinals. The magic she and an older student from Athens had been throwing around, it had been nerve-racking to watch. Charissa had actually been hit with _four_ different spells, and hit her opponent twice, before finally succumbing. The second one she'd been hit with, Hermione had later learned, had been a _low-powered blasting curse_. When the duel had ended, and Hermione had raced down to the Healers' tents, she'd found Charissa half-conscious and stripped from the waist up, the most obvious injury the bloody, blackened mess made of her left shoulder, deliriously defending herself from the Healer chastising her for _cauterising her own wounds mid-duel_ so she could keep fighting.

Sometimes, she really thought Charissa was completely ridiculous.

Hermione had left after hardly ten seconds, unable to stay in the same room with Charissa all messed up like that. It had been... Well, she hadn't liked it. Remembering it still made her a bit queasy. By the time she'd come back thirty minutes later, Charissa had been mostly healed already. Semi-delirious, still, obviously exhausted, and she'd moved very cautiously, as though very stiff and sore, but mostly better already. Magical healing was rather absurd sometimes. They'd been talking for maybe five minutes when suddenly, as though voicing an afterthought, Charissa had asked what colours Hermione would be wearing to the Yule Ball. She didn't want to clash, see.

Honestly, looking back, she'd probably been more shocked than she'd had good reason to be. She'd sort of assumed they weren't going. They'd been being extremely private about their...well, their relationship, she guessed. She'd both overheard and been told there were rumours about them going around, but nobody knew for sure. Well, nobody outside two dozen people or so, the ones they spent time with, both their immediate families, some of Charissa's cousins, they all knew. And Morag, but she'd somehow restrained her usual impulse to gossip. She'd just sort of assumed, she didn't know, that Charissa wanted it to stay that way? She was the future Lady of a Noble House, after all — if it were public knowledge she was seeing a muggleborn girl it would _definitely_ be in the _Prophet_ , absolutely no doubt about that. Hermione had assumed Charissa hadn't wanted to deal with any of that, so had been keeping the whole thing semi-secret.

Not that Hermione'd really had a problem with that. She was still sort of... Well, she wasn't entirely sure. She still wasn't used to the idea, she guessed. She still wasn't sure what to think of this whole thing. Things weren't that different from when they'd just been normal best friends, honestly, it was a little confusing. Erm, well, except for the kissing, anyway, that was new. They did do some of that, when other people weren't around. Sort of a lot, actually...

Not that she really had a problem with that, either. It was all just confusing. Half the time, most of the time even, she really had no clue what she was doing.

When she'd said she'd had no idea Charissa had been planning on going, Charissa had looked mildly surprised, as though that should have been obvious. So, apparently, Charissa _hadn't_ been trying to keep the whole thing semi-secret. Hermione had had the weird feeling Charissa had only been being discreet on her account. She'd mumbled something about not having been planning on it, she'd need to go out and get something on the weekend. The moment had felt oddly humiliating, as if she'd been being tested somehow and failed miserably, she couldn't explain it.

So here she was. Her hair done up all nice in a way she'd _required_ magic to pull off. (Sometimes she really loved magic.) In dress robes of a style she'd intentionally picked as close to a more familiar Western-style dress as possible, in several shades of blue all the way from off-black at the hem to random off-white tracery in a couple places. Magical clothes were sort of weird. Pretty much all the silver-toned jewelry she owned, which wasn't very much — a pair of simple earrings, two plain chains of slightly different lengths around her neck, a few little bracelets. One of the last, she remembered, had been a gift from Lily. She'd been a bit surprised when she'd gotten it, though it wasn't completely frivolous, enchanted with poison and potion and curse -detecting charms, but still. It was rather impressive work, actually — apparently, Lily had done the enchanting herself, but Hermione had needed a magnifying glass to make out the runework at all. If she'd had anything from Charissa she would have worn it, but she didn't. Charissa always got her books. Which she was not _at all_ complaining about, mind, they were always interesting. She'd be somewhat disappointed if Charissa gave her anything else, honestly.

And she couldn't help feeling this was all somewhat surreal. She was going to some big, high-society party thing. The guest list was somewhat larger than usual, what with all the foreign mages about, but was still somewhat restricted as to just who was allowed. And she was going to this fancy thing with her...

With her _what_ , exactly? She'd admit she'd been sort of avoiding putting words to exactly what was going on, even in her own head. It was just... It was all so new, and not at all what she'd expected, and she was so completely lost half the time. Girlfriend? She guessed that was the word. She meant, what else _was_ Charissa if not her girlfriend? She didn't know, this was so...

She didn't know what she was doing. But then, she wasn't sure if anyone did, at her age.

Shaking the thoughts off, she was just about to turn and head for the door when she felt something rubbing at her leg. Glancing down, she was entirely unsurprised to find Augí. 'What are you doing, you silly cat?' she said, trying not to sound too whiny. Not sure what point there was to maintaining her dignity when she was talking to a cat anyway, but she could never shake the weird feeling Augí somehow understood her perfectly fine. 'You're going to get white all over my—'

In an instant, the world around her abruptly vanished.

It was hard to put words to exactly what was happening. Everything had turned black, totally black, with only the barest impression of shape around her, the air suddenly sharp and cold on her skin. The only exception was Augí at her feet, who almost seemed to be glowing, snowy fur shimmering impossibly bright in the darkness. There was the faintest sense of motion, a slight breeze biting at her ears and fingers. She had time enough for one panicked gasp, a second.

Then, with a flash of white light, the world snapped back into existence around her. Hermione stumbled, after a couple steps steadying herself with a hand against the wall. She took a few deep breaths, willing her heart to stop pounding terrified in her chest. What the hell _was_ that?

She was distracted after a moment by the sound of voices — far more than she would expect up in Ravenclaw Tower. Muffled from distance, but not far at all. She glanced around, instantly recognising where she was: just off the Grand Staircase, a single floor above the Entrance Hall. They'd decided to get ready for the Ball separately, Hermione in their room and Charissa with some of her cousins in Slytherin, and meet up in the Great Hall. Augí had popped her all the way down here, a walk that would have taken her five, even ten minutes sometimes, in an instant.

Was that why he'd been waiting around? Had Charissa told him to do it, or had he decided to on his own?

Hermione blinked, looked down at the floor, searching for Charissa's increasingly unnerving pet. He was a few steps away now, slowly slinking off down the hall away from the gathered mages. Forcing down just how weird it felt _talking to a cat_ , Hermione said, 'Thanks, Augí.'

The only response Hermione got was a twitch in a single ear. Then Augí's slow, even pace took him into a thin shadow thrown from a spoke in a torch bracket, and he smoothly vanished.

Hmm.

The Entrance Hall, she saw descending the stairs, was absolutely packed with people — mostly Hogwarts students, it looked like, a few people here or there she didn't recognise who were probably older family members. It was a little strange seeing all these people she saw every day gathered in a room she walked through multiple times every day made up all fancy, but she shrugged the feeling off. After a bit of searching she managed to find Charissa, standing with a clump of people. From here, Hermione recognised Gwyneira and Jas, and also Tracey, Daphne Greengrass right next to her. There was a woman next to Greengrass, looking like nothing but an aged-up version of the same person, who was probably her mother, and a man next to Tracey, features very typical of pale-skinned-black-haired nobility, who was probably her father.

Hermione frowned when she noticed Bella, hanging close off Charissa's shoulder. What was _she_ doing here? And all prettied up like everyone else, too. Not very interestingly, Hermione thought, her dress robes uniformly a glimmering black, but still. Wasn't there an age restriction or something? Sure, Gwyneira and Jas were technically under that minimum age, but they were exceptions — Gwyneira was the future Lady Longbottom, it wasn't like anyone was going to tell her she couldn't go. Bella _was_ also from a Noble and Most Ancient House, yes, but she wasn't the heir, it was different.

Actually, come to think of it, Bella probably was the heir. Technically. She knew from Charissa explaining these things that inheritance of the Black title worked by selection — the current Lord or Lady chose whoever in the House they wanted to succeed them — in the event no selection was made the title passing by a slightly modified version of primogeniture. Modified in that gender wasn't taken into account at all, and candidates still had to be members of House Black and _only_ House Black. Since Dora was an only child, and her mother's younger sister's son was also a Malfoy, and Bella was her mother's older sister's only child, and all three Black sisters were ineligible for various reasons, she guessed Bella _was_ the next in line. _Technically_.

So, she guessed it wasn't too unusual she'd managed to worm her way in. But it annoyed her Bella would be here. She really didn't like Bella. She couldn't even explain exactly why. It wasn't like there was any particular reason, any specific thing she could point to and say, that was it, that was what annoyed her so much. The girl just rubbed her the wrong way, she guessed. It really didn't help that Bella had been around a lot, thanks to this stupid ydvoxaþ thing going on. Stupid magical society and their stupid backward cultural junk...

She was still a few steps away when Charissa turned her head to meet her eyes, as though sensing her approach. With how absurdly powerful she'd been getting these days who knew, maybe she had. She was entirely unsurprised to find Charissa wasn't dressed explicitly feminine at all — it always struck her as subtly wrong the infrequent occasions Charissa dressed girly, she really couldn't say why. She was a little surprised, though, to notice she did actually recognise what Charissa was wearing, out of a book she'd read at one point about regional magical culture.

While, yes, most of their original tribal culture had been lost over the years, Celtic mages had stubbornly managed to hold on to a few things. Roman sources had a bad habit of over-exaggerating anything they could conceivably portray as barbarism, but it _was_ true Celtic (and Germanic) peoples had had a rather prominent warrior tradition. Traditionally, a portion of the population of each tribe, or each clan a little later on, were always trained in and prepared for combat, should the need to defend their people arise — any mages in the clan were almost always included, since magic was very useful for such things. As the old clans transitioned into the Houses of the modern magical nation, the tradition had been retained and, her books said, still observed by the majority of families even into today. Even in the smallest of Houses — such as House Potter, which with the imminent finalisation of Charissa's parents' divorce would be reduced to an absolutely tiny five people — it was still expected at the least _one_ person would assume the traditional role.

One interesting thing she'd read looking into all this was that traditional warrior culture did not and had never made any distinction based on gender. They didn't seem to care, at all. Foreign contemporary sources talk about Boudica's leadership of the Iceni tribe — or Bwðigys and Yceniþ as she heard them referred to these days — in their famous revolt against Roman authority as though it were somewhat unusual, a woman leading a people to war. The locals hadn't thought so. If anything, they'd expected it. What else was a warrior to do, when these foreigners were reneging on the treaties they'd made only a decade ago, harshly calling in debts the Iceni hadn't known existed, had responded to her polite response to _quit it_ by beating her and raping her daughters? To them, raising an army and personally leading a revolt they all knew was doomed to fail from the beginning seemed the natural response.

She had to wonder sometimes if that sort of idiocy were genetic or something.

But anyway, House Potter's had been Lily, but now that she was leaving Hermione guessed Charissa was taking it up, and she was dressed to reflect it. Tight, soft leather boots with a few colourful braids down the side, loose trousers and long-sleeved tunic in deep, mottled greens. Well, green save nearly black red lines along a couple seams that were clearly ogham — she couldn't actually _read_ ogham, but she still recognised it. Honestly, she thought the whole thing looked very strange, but she guessed it was normal for British mages, they probably wouldn't think twice about it. The colourful beads, greens and blues and reds, plaited into her bangs were pretty at least, that part Hermione liked.

She still found all this traditional culture stuff very, very silly, and at times almost unnervingly strange, but she'd mostly fallen into the habit of just ignoring it.

And Charissa was smiling at her. Not a _lot_ , just the slight looseness in her lips and softness in her eyes Hermione had long ago learned to recognise was just what it looked like when she wasn't faking it. Without even a word or anything, Charissa smoothly took her arm when she arrived, and turned back to the others. Charissa rattled out an abbreviated introduction for the three of them — Ailbhe Greengrass got the additional note that she was the Lady Greengrass, and Terence Davis that he was a friend of Lily's from all the way back when they were in Hogwarts. It seemed Hermione's guess of their identities was—

'Wait a second,' Hermione suddenly blurted out, she thought maybe interrupting the younger Greengrass in mid-sentence, but she hadn't been paying attention. ' _Ailbhe_ Greengrass? The same Ailbhe Greengrass who wrote _On Thought and Magic?'_

Lady Greengrass raised a thin eyebrow, hints of a smirk pulling at her lips. She seemed amused, but in a pleasant, warm sort of way. Which instantly set her apart from her daughter, she guessed — Hermione didn't know Daphne Greengrass personally, but she knew from Arithmancy and her reputation that she wasn't the friendliest person around. 'I suppose you read it, then?'

'Well, yes.' Hermione tried not to shuffle awkwardly under the mixed stares of Slytherins and Ravenclaws. 'I sort of have it memorised, actually.'

A look of surprise flitting across her face, Lady Greengrass said, 'What, the whole book?'

She shrugged. 'Honestly, I memorise most books I read.'

'And she's read quite a few,' Charissa said, sounding slightly amused herself. 'Her memory just works like that.'

'Eidetic memory?'

Hermione shook her head. 'Not exactly. Something similar, though.' Eidetic memory was perfect visual recall, while she had mostly-perfect autobiographical memory — not quite the same thing. Also, there was some debate among experts whether eidetic memory even existed, but she had never heard of someone with memory like hers anyway, so she guessed it didn't matter.

'Well, that's a useful gift for an enchantress to have.'

And Hermione was suddenly uncomfortable. Because, well, while she _had_ memorised that book, and several others, it wasn't like going into runic magic was something she was really considering. She didn't think she liked runic magic very much. But this was obviously Lady Greengrass's field, if she'd been writing books on the topic, so...awkward. She considered how to respond for a long moment before finally saying, 'I'm not sure I'm going to be going in that direction with my education, actually.'

If anything, she just looked confused at that. 'Why not?'

It was Terence — he'd told her to use his first name — who spoke first, giving Greengrass a slightly exasperated look. 'There are legitimate career paths that do not involve enchanting, Ailbhe.'

 _Mum sighed, shaking her head at Dad a little. 'It wouldn't be the end of the world if our daughter didn't go into medicine, Dan.'_

' _Well, there's magical medicine, isn't there? That, at least. What do you need to get into that, anyway?'_

 _Hermione blinked at her father for a moment. She couldn't tell whether he was joking with this whole topic or not. 'Erm, just the standard classes, I think. Transfiguration and Charms, Herbology and Potions, and probably Defence. I think that's it. Then there's an apprenticeship afterward, those are rather selective and last for several years, I heard.' They might be hard to get into, considering she was a muggleborn and all, but the Potters would probably help with that._

' _Dan.' Mum gave Dad a flat little glare, and switched to French just to say, 'Stop it.'_

' _What's the big problem? I don't get it.'_

' _I think you understand the problem, you're just being difficult on purpose.'_

' _Hey, you knew what you were getting into, and you still agreed to marry me.'_

 _Mum sighed._

Even as the memory replayed behind her eyes, the world around her kept going — an experience she'd always had trouble describing despite her long familiarity with it, as though reality had suddenly gone split-screen on her, one field of view the present moment and the other something pulled from the past, the sights and smells and sounds and textures of both equally tangible. And yes, that _could_ get confusing sometimes. But anyway, Greengrass was saying, 'I understand that,' sounding slightly annoyed. 'But even in other fields, a background in runic magic can be a major advantage. At the least, it would give her a leg up above other candidates applying for mastery or apprenticeship programs.'

Terence's lips tilted into a little smirk. 'Don't think you can fool me, Ailbhe. I know you're just disappointed neither of your daughters have much interest in enchanting. I see where this is coming from.'

To Hermione's surprise, Lady Greengrass almost seemed to pout at him. Seemed out of character for formal magical society, really.

'Excuse me, Mother,' the younger Greengrass said, sounding noticeably uncomfortable, 'but Tracey and I will be going now. We'll find you later.' Without waiting for a response, Greengrass tightened her grip around Tracey's arm, and started walking off, suddenly enough Tracey stumbled for a moment before catching up. Gwyneira and Jas also took the opportunity to slip away, Jas shooting Charissa a slightly apologetic look.

'Yes, yes,' Greengrass said, waving an absent hand at her retreating daughter. 'But, my point is, Miss Granger, that runic magic has innumerable applications in virtually every field, so I have to wonder why you're dismissing it.'

Hermione hadn't sounded that dismissive of runic magic in general, had she? She hadn't meant to. Whatever, not important. She considered her response for a moment again. 'It just doesn't click for me like everything else, I guess. It just seems too...' She debated what word to use for a couple seconds, frowning to herself. '...muddy? It's too ambiguous and inconsistent for me to follow all the time, I guess.'

A look of amusement crossing her face, Greengrass then gave her an exaggerated frown. 'That's odd. You seem to be able to speak English just fine.'

She blinked. 'Er. Excuse me?'

'Correct me if I'm wrong, Miss Granger, but I would suppose you have a gift for arithmancy.'

What did that have to do with anything? She glanced at Charissa quick, who just shrugged back, before answering. 'Well, yes, I guess so.'

' _I guess so_ ,' Charissa said, that same tone of amusement on her voice again. 'She means she's top of our class.' Hermione tried not to fidget, ignoring the warmth on her cheeks. Well, yes, she guessed she was top of their class, but it she simply didn't think it was very polite to go bragging about that in public.

Besides, considering Luna was only a shade behind her, and was the youngest person in the class by a considerable margin — obviously, since she was the only third-year in their fourth-year class — and Hermione thought she might even be the _oldest_ due to where her birthday fell, she didn't really think she had that special of a talent or anything. Honestly, she thought her memory just let her cheat. If she saw an analysis or a proof once, she remembered it. But if it came to deconstructing or proving something herself, she didn't think she was actually that good. She mostly ended up brute-forcing any maths involved; some of the far more efficient and elegant proofs she'd seen Luna work up absolutely astounded her. Even Charissa had better intuition for it than she did. She really didn't think she was quite as good as her scores in class reflected. She wasn't the only person to notice it either — Professor Vector had even warned her a couple months ago she might start plateauing in fifth year.

But she guessed the statement that she was the highest-scoring student in their class was technically accurate, so she didn't bother refuting it.

Anyway, Greengrass was talking. 'That's a problem a lot of more rationally-minded people can have. You're muggleborn, right?' At Hermione's nod, Greengrass said, 'So you know about Legos.' Honestly, Hermione was more surprised _a Lady of the Wizengamot_ knew about Legos, but okay. 'See, a problem a lot of people have is thinking of runes like Legos — discrete spell-pieces you can stick together to build an effect. But it doesn't work like that. Think of runic magic instead like words, in any language. Much like a spoken word, a rune stands in for a concept, but arbitrarily so. There is no reason the sounds in the word "apple" _must_ mean what they do, just as there is no reason any particular rune is inextricably tied to a single, finite meaning. And the meaning they _do_ have depends on where they fall in a script, just as any word you speak changes meaning slightly depending on exactly how you use it. Don't think of a script as an arithmantically-proper description of what you want the enchanted object to do, but rather spoken instructions _telling_ it what to do. It doesn't have to be precise, but neither does any spoken language, and you use those just fine.'

That...

Hermione blinked to herself, only half paying attention to the conversation continuing around her.

That made a lot of sense, actually. Huh.

* * *

The Yule Ball overall was, she would admit, not even close to what she'd expected. She thought it was possibly due to all the foreign guests, but she'd never been to one of these events anyway, so she couldn't really say for certain.

Like all the major events associated with the Tournament had been so far, and probably would be through the end, the entire thing was held outside. This time, a portion of the Hogwarts grounds had been flattened and hardened, an even floor of gleaming white granite bearing dozens and dozens of little black tables, one longer one for the judges and Champions, plenty of open space for people to wander around and gather in little conversation groups, illuminated by dozens and dozens of floating orbs of sparkling glass glowing various shades of blue and white. The entire floor had been surrounded with plants, narrow paths through flanked by more floating lights. Hermione recognised the roughly metre high bushes thick with green as holly from the multitude of bright red berries — which she thought was slightly out of season, but _magic_ — and she thought the trees stretching above from between them were oak, though it was hard to tell with the skeletal branches barren of leaves. Barren of their own leaves, anyway — all of them were absolutely thick with bright green and white mistletoe.

From her own comparatively uninformed perspective, Hermione still knew enough to suss out why those particular plants had been picked. It was for the symbolism, she thought. Certain plants were thought to have various magical powers in old Celtic myths, and oaks were tied to longevity and wisdom, mistletoe to fertility and healing, and holly was thought to ward against evil. Even if British mages still didn't believe any of that was technically true anymore, the association had endured long past the original context.

At least the place was pretty, anyway. She wasn't about to say it wasn't.

The proceedings were slightly odd. At the very beginning, just as most everyone had arrived — weighted toward British mages with their silly robes, with another odd jumble of ethnicities in varying regional dress, but she was mostly getting used to all that by now — there was a sudden disturbance that, from how the ICW people at the main table reacted, she knew hadn't been planned. A young woman of distinct Middle Eastern colouring and features, looking somewhat odd in leather trousers and sleeveless tunic both littered with colourful beadwork and broken with a red and black sash across her chest, leaped onto one of the tables near the middle. Hermione didn't actually notice her until she heard a shouted call in some foreign language, she had no idea which. Even as she found the woman, the call was repeated by a few other voices — a mix of genders and ages, but all shouting noisily up at the sky. The strange woman hopped off the table, pushed her way through the crowd until she got the southern end of the cleared space, then shouted something again. Same language, but different words, it sounded like. The clump of people following her — a couple were dressed much like her, most weren't, but all had the brown skin and black hair that marked them as from the same general area of the world — called out again, but Hermione was pretty sure they'd just repeated the same thing she'd said earlier, the same call she'd started with. It was odd.

Hermione turned around, searching out Lily in the couple tables House Black had appropriated. (For some reason she and Charissa were sitting with the Blacks, and not the Potters and the Longbottoms, she hadn't bothered asking why.) 'What are they doing?'

Lily glanced at the pack now making another pair of shouts off to the north, then gave a little shrug as she turned back to Hermione. 'It's a Kemetic thing. It'd take a long time to explain, but to put it briefly it's a thing certain segments of their society do before all public gatherings like this. Has its origin in an old method ancient Egyptians used to erect simple palings before any ritual. Long story.'

'Oh.' She blinked, turned back to the group, who were now approaching the eastern end. 'So, that's Kemetic they're speaking then.'

'Yeah. Well, no, technically it's a somewhat older form of the language. Muggles would call it Demotic.'

Ah, okay. When she'd learned magical cultures still used some spoken and written languages that were dead in the muggle world she'd gone on something of a research binge, so she did actually know what Lily meant. The stage in the development of the Egyptian language centered around about two thousand years ago was called Demotic, named after the Greek name for the written form of the language used in the same time period, a simplification of the hieratic script, cursive writing used in ancient Egypt for thousands of years. Both hieratic and demotic writing looked a lot like Arabic to her, but that was probably just her not knowing what she was talking about, since they weren't related. Well, technically they _were_ related — hieratic and demotic, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Roman, all those writing systems were all ultimately descended from Egyptian hieroglyphs — but not _closely_ related, in any case. But as she was thinking, Demotic was old enough even people who had grown up speaking modern Kemetic quite likely wouldn't be able to understand it anyway. So it was unlikely she was really missing anything.

Before long they were done with whatever that was, everyone was seated, everyone except for Dumbledore, who was giving another speech. Hermione wasn't an expert in such things, but she was pretty sure this amounted to a nondenominational, she guessed was the word, Solstice...thing. How even in the most complete of darkness light can be found, and no matter how long the night dawn will always come, that kind of thing. It was nice, she could admit that. And then there was food, and everyone was distracted.

It was sort of like that opening feast thing for the Tournament, she guessed, though in miniature — there were far less people here. And also much quieter, which she could only be thankful for, no headache from the noise tonight. As calm and normal as dinner surrounded by a bunch of Blacks could be, but she was growing accustomed by now to how very strange Charissa's family was sometimes, so it didn't bother her so much anymore.

Watching the people around, Hermione noticed not everyone stayed in the same place all the time. Some people wandered around, talking to people at other tables for a few moments before moving on. Some switched tables entirely. Their table was, for the most part, left alone — though Dora at the adjacent table, being Lady Black and all, got an almost constant stream of people dropping by to say hello. Not completely alone, a few people quick acknowledging Lily, but mostly. In fact, they only got one visitor of note the entire dinner, and the occasion only gave Hermione even more strange things to think about.

Not that she understood any of the conversation at all. A woman suddenly appeared about halfway through the meal, gracefully getting Lily's attention. Hermione was somewhat surprised to notice the woman was the same one who had led the Egyptian ritual thing earlier. She didn't understand a single word of what they were saying, the entire thing in Kemetic — she hadn't known before but was not at all surprised to learn Lily could hold a conversation in Kemetic just fine. Whatever it was the woman was saying, Lily ended up looking almost shocked by the end of the short conversation, her eyes wide and mouth gaping for a moment, before she finally managed to stutter out what sounded like a _thank you_ of some kind. With a bright smile and a smooth little bow, the woman turned and walked away. After watching her leave for a couple seconds, blinking to herself, Lily finally managed, 'Well. That was interesting.'

'What was interesting?'

Bella actually answered Charissa's question first — apparently, she knew enough Kemetic to pick it up. Omniglots were cheaters. 'We all just got invited to a wedding.' Then she frowned, spoonful of stew suspended halfway to her mouth. 'That is what _ẖopn-sheleẖit_ means, right? Wedding?'

'Well, yes.' Lily visibly resettled herself, clearing her throat a little. 'Not literally, but yes. Apparently she's getting married in January, in the valley here. We're all invited.'

'Er.' That was very strange. Hermione stared at Lily for a moment, wondering how exactly to word what she was thinking. Eh, just come right out and say it. 'Why would a total stranger just invite you to their wedding?'

Again, Bella was the first to answer. 'Lily's famous, woman's a priestess.' And she shrugged.

'Priestess?' She'd had no idea the old Egyptian religion was still practised at all. She'd thought it'd died out millennia ago.

'Yeah.' Bella turned to Lily, asking, 'It was Sēt, right?'

Lily blinked at her for a second before nodding. 'Yeah, Sēt.' Somewhat absently gesturing to her own chest, 'You can tell by the black and the red, Sēt's colours. Referencing the night sky and the Upper Egyptian desert. Actually,' she said, a crooked smile crossing her face, 'the colour red is associated with Sēt enough an idiom that's gone in and out of fashion over the millennia for redheads literally means _children of Sēt_. It's a whole thing.'

Hermione knew a little bit about Set, that'd come up in one of her research binges. The god of the desert, of chaos and violence. Though not necessarily violence in a negative sense — Set was usually depicted as the sun god's champion against the more malevolent forces of chaos, sort of fighting fire with fire, so to speak. Set did end up being demonised in the last centuries of the old monarchy, probably due to another role of his as the patron god of foreigners, since Egypt had just been conquered for a bit there. She was really more surprised that the old Egyptian religion still existed in any form, to the point that they still had priestesses. Might as well ask, then. 'I thought the old religion died out a long time ago.'

With another slight shrug, Lily said, 'Well, it did. It's not really a religion anymore, they just use a lot of the old terminology and such. Their priesthood is more like our concept of academia than it is clergy. You'll have one old god or another associated with one sort of magic or another, the "priesthood" organised in their name masters of that field, and their "temples" are essentially universities. Axēkit—' Wow, not entirely sure how she'd gotten her throat to do that. '—as a priestess of Sēt, is a mistress of shadow magic. I've heard of her, actually — she's rather famously gifted.'

'Why don't they just call them schools, then?'

'They're not quite the same thing.' Lily shrugged again; it was rather odd, Hermione thought, just how long her awkwardness was sticking around. Seemed out of character. 'The temples are seen as rather more prestigious, and far more specialised. And the...' She hesitated for a second. '...the environment, I guess, at the temples is a bit different. It's complicated. Calling them schools wouldn't be entirely appropriate.

'I mean, would someone working at a school—?' Lily broke off, let out a sigh, giving Charissa a quick look. 'Axēkit heard about the divorce, you see. I am rather well-known internationally, because of the stuff with Éjbevissza, and it's common knowledge I have a mild talent for shadow magic. And, ah, not just the wedding, but Axēkit said that, if I feel like I need to get away from Britain for a while, I can come live in the temple at _Bakin-Sēt_. I didn't ever think I'd get the offer, but they do do stuff like that sometimes. Not something you'd expect a professor at some university to do, is it?'

Well, no, Hermione guessed that was a good point.

But that wasn't the part Charissa was focusing on. Her face studiously blank, she said, 'You're going to Kemet?'

Looking distinctly uncomfortable, Lily shrugged. 'I'll have to think about it, won't I? To study magic at an Egyptian temple...' Lily shook her head to herself. 'It's not exactly an opportunity a lot of people get. I'd have to be an idiot not to consider it.' Before Charissa could react to that at all, Lily said, 'Don't worry, though, I'll still be around. I mean, I will be studying _shadow magic_ — I'd be astounded if they couldn't help me get better range from my shadow-walking.'

Hermione had no idea what that meant. Whatever it was, it made Charissa smile at least.

Eventually, the meal was called to an end, the Champions and their partners were called forward — the only one of the dates she recognised was Chang with Diggory, none of the rest were Hogwarts students — and the music started up again. It was a string quintet playing, Hermione had noticed, though she didn't recognise any of the music so far. Sounded vaguely Romantic-era-esque, she guessed, but otherwise new. And then dancing was happening.

Hermione found herself very distracted by Delacour and her date. Who was obviously another caryd. She had the same bright silvery hair, the same unnaturally yellowish eyes, the same intoxicating aura of grace and beauty about her. The two of them seemed almost exactly identical in matching dresses of shimmering deep green and pale orange. She didn't seem quite exactly the same though. She seemed more... It was hard to explain. More energetic? Delacour always had a faint sense of grave dignity about her, even when she was smiling, but this other caryd seemed much...looser, she guessed. The two of them were talking about something up there, but while Delacour would just smile a little bit every once in a while her date kept bursting into high giggles, easily audible over the music and voices from all the way over here. It was interesting.

Okay, fine, she was making excuses. She was mostly watching them because they were both ridiculously pretty. But they were carīdwð! There wasn't a lot she could do about it. They were just... It was _really_ hard not to stare.

Although, come to think of it, it was a lot odd Delacour had affected her so much from the beginning. She'd never really thought about it — Charissa had, obviously, she'd even teased her about it at the Champion selection, Hermione remembered. Obviously, if it'd taken until _literally earlier this evening_ to even be a little comfortable referring to Charissa as her girlfriend _in the privacy of her own head_ — and it still felt a little weird just doing that, honestly — it was very clear she hadn't thought this stuff out very much. It just... It was uncomfortable, and she couldn't really straighten it all out in her head, she was very confused half the time. But she was gradually coming to realise that it wasn't just Charissa. She was figuring this out. It felt really weird to think, and she wasn't entirely sure yet, but...

She was really starting to wonder if she wasn't legitimately a lesbian. It'd never occurred to her as something to seriously think about before, but...well, things were starting to get to a point she really thought she had to.

And, er, she'd probably been driving Charissa crazy for a while now, how cautious and silly she'd been being about all this. But she couldn't help it, she had no idea what she was doing.

Although, _no idea what she was doing_ quickly turned out to be the theme of the night. Hermione abruptly realised even as Charissa started pulling her to her feet that, to her mortification, she'd entirely forgotten to learn how to dance. Charissa had just laughed at the admission, shaking her head at her. And so Charissa had to teach her. Which was just extremely awkward. Everyone else all gracefully moving around them while Charissa whispered instructions into her ear, Hermione entirely failing to keep up the majority of the time, feeling stupid and clumsy every time she slipped.

By the end of the night, she either stepped on or tripped over Charissa's feet exactly twenty-seven times. Sometimes, she really didn't like her memory.

But when it actually went well... Well, it was... It was nice. She was observant enough to notice Charissa was only taking her out for the slow, simple dances, and all of those pretty much just involved... Ugh, she didn't even know what she was trying to say. She didn't even know _why_ it made her feel like this. It wasn't that big of a deal! Charissa was just...holding her, which was a thing they'd done a thousand times, there wasn't anything special about this. Sure, they were in public, which was new, but if anything she thought that'd interfere with any niceness. But instead she just felt impossible _warm_ , and _light_ , and, god, she felt she like such a silly little girl even thinking all this to herself, what was _wrong_ with her...

She heard a shutter go from very nearby at one point, probably someone from the _Prophet_ taking a picture, and she couldn't even summon the concentration to care.

Not that she was the only person Charissa danced with at all. Every once in a while, while they were sitting out the faster songs, one would come up that Charissa apparently liked, because she'd spring up to find someone else to go with. Hermione let her, she didn't mind watching her. It _was_ a little out of nowhere — she'd had _no idea_ Charissa knew how to do all this. There were a lot of different dances she ended up doing too, some of the steps making her a little dizzy just watching, it was weird. When Hermione had asked, Charissa said she'd kind of had to learn, nearly everyone in Noble Houses did. She couldn't even count the times she and Neville had been forced to practise together under stern, grandmotherly gazes. Her choices had been to either decide to find it enjoyable or suffer. And she did seem to enjoy it, for the most part — excluding one time she got roped into a dance with her father, she seemed less happy about that.

But it was very interesting. Hermione hadn't known that about Charissa at all. She knew there was all this silly society stuff Noble Houses did, but it somehow hadn't occurred to her Charissa would have been taught to dance starting about as soon as she could walk. This was just making her feel plain and clumsy again.

So Hermione made a mental note to arrange dance lessons this summer. She could find the time for that.

But then one thing happened that made her sure she would never, ever catch up. After a short break, everyone talking and drinking while the musicians took a rest, the air was a split by a harsh, slightly disharmonious chord from one of the violins. Then a series of light, fluttering notes falling into another very similar chord. By then, Charissa was already on her feet, shooting a short apology over her shoulder before running off, shouting for Neville over the noise of other guests tracking down partners.

'Oh,' Lily said from a couple seats away, where she'd been sitting the whole night — Hermione didn't think she'd gotten up once. 'So we're doing this now.'

'Doing what?'

Lily shook her head. 'Just watch.'

A few couples had gathered, far less than Hermione would have thought, fewer than for the other dances, she only counted nine. Disproportionately younger people, she noticed, seven of the nine were all Hogwarts students. When the song proper started up — Hermione was hardly an expert with this particular thing, she could only say it sounded Irish — they all started moving at once. She could tell immediately this dance was extremely complicated. It seemed a lot like Irish stepdance she'd seen before, except not quite the same thing, since this was obviously intended as a couples' dance, and there was more...spinning and stuff. Though it was also oddly slow. Both the dancers moving and the music seemed to be in slow motion, way under the tempo they should be at. The song went through its main pattern thing four times, each one accompanied by a variation on the dance — Hermione noticed the second quarter the man's part simplified a bit, the woman's getting only more complicated with a dizzying amount of twirling, the third quarter the roles switching around — before the music came to an end with three hard hits on a chord.

Silence for a couple seconds, then the same song started up again, the dancers doing the same thing all over again. But noticeably faster. Still slower than she thought the song _should_ be, but faster. Then, before too long, it was over again.

Then it started again, but faster.

And faster.

And faster.

And _faster_.

It wasn't until the seventh time, which was getting fast enough Hermione was having trouble even following their feet anymore, that she finally realised what was going on. Or could at least guess. One couple slipped, screwing up the steps somehow — it was over so quick she hadn't even noticed how — and with a chorus of disappointed groans they stopped, and left the floor. A moment later, during the last quarter of this take, another couple tripped up, and they left too. She thought she got the basic idea: the song was going to keep going faster and faster until only one couple could keep up. Rather strange, but okay.

The seven remaining couples made it through the eighth time.

In the ninth, one of the two post-Hogwarts couples (or perhaps students at another school, she wasn't sure) tripped over each other, shuffled off the floor flushed and sweating.

In the tenth, in the second quarter with all the the ridiculous spinning the woman had to do, one of them obviously got very dizzy, and lost balance. Her partner _almost_ managed to catch her, but then they both went careening into the couple next to them, all four of them tumbling to the floor. Under a hail of laughter, they faded off too, leaving only eight people behind.

By the end of the eleventh, the only people left were one of the post-Hogwarts couples and, rather to Hermione's continuing bafflement, Charissa and Neville. In the short pause before the music started up again, the four of them made faces at each other. Very mature.

This was just absolutely ridiculous. She could not imagine how Charissa could _possibly_ be doing this. Neville either, for that matter. The twelfth was so ridiculously fast by now, the four of them were practically blurs, she couldn't follow what they were doing even a little bit, she noticed even the musicians were starting to cheat and slur notes so they could even play fast enough. But, _somehow_ , both of them managed it just fine. This time, in the short pause, Charissa cut the other two a glance, giving them something of an exasperated look.

The thirteenth was just... She had no... _How was Charissa doing this?_

When it was over, in a shockingly short space of time, while Charissa took a second to get her breath back, Neville glanced at the other two — who hardly even seemed winded, grinning cheerfully as anything — and sent a quick pleading look at the stars.

Somehow, Charissa and Neville managed to make it through the fourteenth. As soon as they stopped, the both of them very red in the face, looking a bit shaky, Charissa cut another glance at the other two. Her lips twisted with disappointment, then she said something to Neville. Hermione wasn't close enough to hear, but she could tell what she'd said anyway: _We lost_.

And they did. The next round, one of them tripped over the other, Hermione didn't even notice how, and they both ended up on the ground. As roughly half of the guests cheered the victors, Charissa and Neville stayed where they lay, seemingly lacking the strength to push themselves from the ground.

After maybe a minute or so, Charissa was back, looking very red and sweaty and shaky, falling bonelessly into the chair next to Hermione's. 'Ugh. Fourteen rounds done perfect and we didn't even win.' Charissa reached for the nearest glass of water, quickly draining half the thing in one go.

Lily shrugged. 'It's better than I could do. I've never made it past nine.'

'Yeah, but you didn't grow up with it, either.'

'True.'

'I don't know if I even could have managed the first.'

Charissa gave her a slightly crooked smile. 'It's not actually that hard. I could teach it to you. Just, you'll need a lot of practice before you can do it that fast. It's really easy to get your feet mixed up.'

Before Hermione could even think to say anything, Charissa dragged her chair across the floor, settling again just against hers, then leaned into her arm, her head resting on her shoulder. And then Hermione _couldn't_ say anything, because the heat crawling up her chest and the tingles across her skin had quite effectively robbed her of the ability to speak.

But it didn't seem Charissa even noticed. She shifted against Hermione for a moment, apparently getting comfortable, before muttering, 'So tired. Wake me up when it's time to go home.'

Lily snorted out a laugh, and Hermione found she was smiling despite herself.

And they stayed like that for...well, Hermione wasn't sure how long. The ball went on around them, people dancing and drinking and laughing. They were left alone. A couple times one of their friends or Charissa's cousins would approach, see Charissa seemingly asleep against her, then turn and leave. Nice of them. A few times more, someone came to talk to Lily, but before too long a somewhat older man came by — though, with how mages aged, she couldn't guess at exactly how old he was for sure — and dragged her off to introduce her to his son — Hermione had a very weird feeling about that, guess he'd heard about the divorce — and they were then alone at the table.

Not that Hermione minded at all. This was rather nice. Hermione had shifted around a little, moved her arm out from under Charissa so it was wrapped around her back instead, her hand resting just over her hip. Charissa nestled into her, head on her shoulder, seemingly asleep. Not _actually_ asleep, of course — she felt Charissa's hand on her leg, fingers moving in lazy circles across the smooth cloth of her dress robes — but still and quiet all the same, eyes closed and face lax. Hermione found herself just sort of sitting there, watching her. She was having something of an odd moment.

Girlfriend.

See, that's what was going on here. She was sure of that now. Or, at least, she was mostly comfortable putting those words to it now.

This was her girlfriend, right here.

Which...she was... Well, "fine" wasn't quite the right word. Saying she was "fine with" the idea of Charissa being her girlfriend she thought was too...too mild? Because, well, there were reasons she was friends with Charissa in the first place. For one thing, she was the very first person Hermione had ever met her own age who could actually keep up with her intellectually. She actually thought Charissa might be smarter than she was — Hermione _knew_ more things, but with the way her memory worked she was cheating, she thought Charissa was more _clever_. And Charissa was far easier to talk to than just about anyone she'd known ever. She just... She wasn't entirely sure what she meant. She never wanted to talk about stupid things, and for the most part Hermione could just come out and say whatever she was thinking and Charissa would get it right away without her having to explain it. The only people who could follow her nearly that well were her parents — well, and Luna and Lily, come to think of it, but not the point. It was just nice was all.

And, well, it was true Charissa was _hardly_ the warmest person on the planet. She was well aware Charissa actually had a reputation as...ah, something of a frigid bitch, really. Mostly, Hermione thought, just because she was incredibly inexpressive — to people who weren't used to picking out the almost unreadable cues, she probably always seemed either bored or mocking. Such things were relative, though, she thought. Charissa had a narrower range than most people, that's just the way she was. She'd long ago gotten used to that.

Honestly, the opinion people who didn't know her well had of Hermione wasn't much better.

And Charissa was starting to get _extremely_ scary with a wand. And even _without_ her wand, she'd heard. She'd always been talented in their practical subjects, sure, and Hermione thought she was probably the top of their class as far as raw power went, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that she was perhaps unnervingly good at all this duelling stuff. She was well aware Charissa could incinerate her in an instant if she wanted to, and there'd be nothing Hermione would be able to do to stop her. Not that she thought Charissa _would_ — she was positive Charissa was aware of this too, and was perhaps even consciously going out of her way to be gentle with Hermione to compensate. Which she did think was going out of her way, because she was well aware Charissa wasn't exactly an affectionate person, but she still ended up doing things like, well, _this_ , right here right now. And, hell, the only time she could remember Charissa had ever used any magic on her against her will was that one sleeping charm back in first year. Oh, and apparating that one time a few months ago, but she didn't count that.

And even... Hmm, well.

Hermione remembered. They'd been in Oxford, back in August. With that same thin, almost unnoticeable smile of hers, Charissa had said, ' _I know duelling isn't your thing. Not that I mind — I'm perfectly willing to do your fighting for you.'_ Hermione hadn't had anything to say to that at the time, and looking back on it made her rather flustered because, well...

She _was,_ wasn't she? She'd even done it before. Back in second year. When Malfoy had first started bullying her, in first year, she'd sort of assumed... Well, the whole magical nobility thing, and Malfoy being her cousin, she'd sort of assumed Charissa had known about it, and just didn't care. They hadn't been friends yet at the time. Later, she'd realised Charissa had had no idea it was happening — Malfoy had apparently only been doing it when she wasn't around on purpose. Hermione hadn't told her because, well, Malfoy _was_ her cousin, she still hadn't been sure at the time Charissa would take her side, and she hadn't wanted to make her family situation awkward in any case. But when Charissa _had_ found out...

The air had turned frigid, harsh and dry as midwinter, flames of black and purple had flickered over Charissa's hands and forearms, her eyes furious and terrifyingly cold...

' _Well,'_ Charissa had said, her voice low and freezing, ' _dear Cousin Draco isn't going to be doing any of that again.'_ And he never had.

Because, the next day, Charissa had _set him on fire_. From what she'd heard, _easily_ , he hadn't stood a chance.

She wasn't entirely sure how to feel about that, looking back. But, well. As long as Charissa's wand wasn't pointed at her, she didn't really think she honestly found her that scary anymore.

And...

Well, as long as she was being honest with herself tonight...

With her left hand, Hermione traced the smooth beads plaited into Charissa's bangs, bright green and blue and red splitting apart solid black. She ran her fingers along her hair, tucked a few soft strands behind her ear. Stroked the smooth curve of her cheek, along her chin. Ran a thumb over thin lips.

Charissa was rather nice-looking, wasn't she? Of course, Hermione had always known that, she'd recognised the second she'd first seen her on the Hogwarts Express first year that Charissa was a pretty girl, would be a beautiful woman eventually. But that wasn't really the same thing. There was a difference between knowing something and feeling it. She'd always _known_ Charissa was attractive, but...

Well.

She pulled her gaze away from Charissa's lips to notice her eyes were open, looking up at her. By the slight twist in her eyebrows, the slight quirk to her mouth, an almost invisible smirk, she knew Charissa was thinking teasing thoughts. Hermione couldn't help a little flash of embarrassment — she'd just kind of been caught staring at her, and randomly grabbing at her face like a silly person there, she hadn't really thought before doing it, she was in a strange mood at the moment.

But, you know what? She really didn't care. This was her girlfriend, here. She thought, as a fifteen-year-old girl, she was allowed to be a _little_ silly about her girlfriend.

So she just gave Charissa the slightest roll of her eyes, pushed her chin up a little, and leaned down to bring her lips to hers.

She was fully aware even as she was doing it that this was the most direct she'd been about this stuff, which she guessed wasn't really saying a lot but still, and she entirely didn't— Well, no, she actually _did_ care, but only in that she thought it was sort of fun, she _must_ do this sort of thing more.

She kissed her soft and gentle, just a little thing lingering on her lips, fighting a smile at the warmth and tingles in her own chest. After a second Charissa moved a little — not pulling away, just sitting up and turning around so she was facing her more, but still pressed close against her hip to shoulder — her left arm coming up and around Hermione's shoulders, the tips of her fingers skimming Hermione's cheek. And Charissa was kissing her, all slow and tender, and Hermione must seriously be in a silly mood right now, because she was fighting the urge to giggle, feeling all to light and giddy, it was weird.

She entirely lost track of time. She didn't even care that they were in public at the moment, in full view of the entire goddamn aristocracy of magical Britain.

She was kissing her girlfriend, and she didn't much care about anything else right now.

Eventually, she didn't know how long later, Charissa pulled bare millimetres away, let out a high, breathy sigh. She leaned in, her face tucking into the crook of Hermione's neck. And Hermione just held her, burying her face in black tresses, absently smiling to herself.

Her hair smelled of cherries and rosemary.

* * *

 _December 24th, 1994_

* * *

Hermione stuffed her hands in her pockets, leaned against the wall, and let out a long sigh, her breath steaming in the cool air. She thought she had maybe five minutes at most before they realised she'd disappeared, so she might as well make the most of them.

Her family could be...a bit much. This was a French year, so they were staying with her grand-maman, in her house just outside of Montargis. She did rather like it here — the neighborhood was nice and green, on the fringes of the forest to the northeast of the city. Most of their time here, it'd just be the three of them — four now, with Gwenn — and Grand-maman and Tienne, spending some days and nights in, but others out. Montargis was very close, after all, Orléans wasn't far either, and Paris wasn't that much further than that, there was a lot to do around here. The cool night was calm and comparatively quiet, it was nice.

But, well. It was Christmas Eve. Her father had four siblings. (Well, one sister and three half-siblings, technically, but not the point.) Three of the four had had children themselves. (Hermione's aunt Tienne was only a few years older than she was.) And _all_ of them came for _le réveillon_. All of them who didn't go to a spouse's family for dinner instead, anyway, but it was still a lot.

She had a lot of cousins. And they were very French. And very loud. Yeah, she needed a few minutes to herself every once in a while. Just to catch her breath.

But her break was very soon interrupted. And not by who she would have thought.

'Well, you look like you're having fun.'

Hermione jumped at the sound of the very familiar voice, a voice she had _entirely_ not expected to hear. She leaped away from the wall, spun on her heel, to find Charissa. Standing there, in a fuzzy green jumper and a black skirt, just standing all casually on the pavement, in front of Hermione's grand-mère's house. _In France_. 'What— What are you _doing_ here?'

And she was immediately thrown off when Charissa did something completely out of character, something she'd never done before: she _pouted_ , her lips very obviously protruding in exaggerated sadness, eyes wide and bright. 'You mean you aren't happy to see me? Fine, then,' she said, voice turned weirdly melodramatic, 'I'll just leave, never mind me.'

'Wait, no.' Almost without realising she was doing it, she darted forward to grab Charissa's sleeve even as she was turning away. 'I'm sorry, I was just, ah, surprised.' And, come to think of it, somewhat terrified. If they realised just who was out here...

Ooh, no, that would not be fun.

'What are you doing here, though?' And make it quick, please, Maylis and Tenne would _never_ stop teasing her.

'Well, it's muggle baby carpenter day, isn't it? I had a thing so I thought I'd come by and bring it.'

Hermione stared at Charissa — who was giving her an uncharacteristically wide smile, teeth showing and everything, it was very strange — just silently stared at her for long seconds, her mouth working fruitlessly. ' _Muggle baby..._ What are you—?'

'Yeah, I guess that didn't make a whole lot of sense.' Charissa shrugged to herself a little. Then, in a sudden motion that made Hermione jump, Charissa slid right up next to her, hardly a couple inches away, still smiling oddly brightly up at her. 'It's Christmas, right, and I still don't get the Christmas thing at all, but I know it's a thing you do, so I thought I'd do the thing.'

Okay. This was completely strange. 'Do the thing?'

'Yes. The thing.'

'Are...' Hermione hesitated, giving Charissa a long look, taking in her odd grin, the unfamiliar brightness in her eyes, the loose, casual way she was holding herself, almost even slouching — which was so entirely not Charissa, it was weird. 'Are— Are you drunk, or something?'

Charissa blinked at her, the smile hitching a little. 'No. There was this— Oh, I'm here in France, you know, because I went with Mum while she was visiting this friend of hers. Benoite, she's this French Auror, fun lady, very funny. And she had this stuff, don't remember what it was called, and Mum looked at her really weird for giving it to me, and yeah, now I feel kinda funny. Why, is it bad? I can leave.'

Letting out a long sigh, Hermione slipped both hands up through the narrow gap between them so she could rub at her face. No, Charissa wasn't drunk. She was _high_. That was just great.

'Oh, I'm sorry.' Charissa slipped closer, pressing right up against her, hands coming up to rub gently at the back of her shoulders. 'If I'm making your not having fun worse, I can leave. I can just do the thing and leave.'

Well. She could just tell her to go, but... She hadn't expected to see Charissa today, she might as well make the most of it for as long as she was here, if only for a few minutes. Even if she was obviously under the influence of _something_ — probably marijuana, there was a fair bit of that around here these days. So she forced herself to just relax a little, let go of her own face to wrap her arms around Charissa's shoulders; Charissa's arms slipped further down in response, settling just over her hips. She waited a moment before speaking, letting Charissa's warmth and presence leech away the extra tension that had suddenly shown up from _her girlfriend_ showing up at _her grand-mère's_ house, _high_. Jesus. 'No, it's fine. Thanks for coming.'

Charissa hummed at her, held her a moment longer. Then she turned to plant a quick kiss on her cheek and pulled away a bit. 'So, I have a thing.'

'You know, whatever you took is really making your vocabulary suffer.'

The grin vanished for a second, Charissa blinking at her. 'Dearest Hermione, while the venerable traditions of the culture in which you were socialised bear to me an intermittently bewildering aura of the tramontane and the exotic, I endeavor to accommodate the expectations and prejudices you have become accustomed to by the lingering influence of your upbringing. Pursuant to those intentions, I have assu—'

'Stop, stop.' Despite how strange this whole situation was, Hermione couldn't help a smiling a little. Charissa was just being so _silly_. 'You've made your point.'

And Charissa was grinning again. 'Right. Good.' She lifted the hem of her jumper a couple inches, revealing a small leather bag at her waist — Hermione recognised it, Charissa carried it with her practically everywhere lately. She reached a hand in, further in than the outside of the bag was long, and rummaged for a moment before pulling something out. 'A thing.' Held out to Hermione was a little wooden box, thinner than it was long, reddish varnish dark in the fading evening light.

Hermione blinked, surprised, and slowly took the box from Charissa, frowning to herself. 'You did already send me books, you know.' Though, they'd arrived on the Solstice instead of Christmas, but that was normal for Charissa. And, well, _technically_ the books had been from all of the Potters, not just Charissa — as appropriate for the gift-giving tradition for the Solstice, she knew, which was slightly different from the European Christian one — but that wasn't really the point.

'Yeah, I know. But I had the idea, but I thought I'd do it. Open it.'

After giving Charissa a suspicious look, she did. Or at least she tried to — it took her a moment to figure out how to open the stupid thing. Eventually her fingers found how the top slid to the side, pushed the bit of wood out of the way. And then stood blinking at what she found. She recognised the House Potter coat-of-arms instantly, of course. Well, she wasn't sure that was quite the appropriate term, really, she wasn't an expert in heraldry. And she was pretty sure mages used slightly different terminology anyway. She'd seen the white on red enough times to instantly identify it, though. It was made into a little, gleaming pendant, surrounded with a ridged ring of some sort of bright, silverish metal, fixed to a chain of a delicately braided metal of a somewhat darker colour.

She just stared at the thing for long moments. She had absolutely no idea how to respond to this.

But, since whatever Charissa had taken was making her oddly talkative, she filled the silence anyway. 'That'll get you through any Potter wards — they'll recognise you as a Potter as long as you're wearing it. Oh, and it's a multi-use portkey, will take you to the Manor on Avwn Clīd, through most wards. Well,' Charissa said with a shrug, 'not a portkey, really, it's older than portkeys, but the same idea.'

'Erm.' Wait a second. Charissa was giving something that would make family wards recognise her as one of them? and let her go to the family manor, which she hadn't even set foot in yet, whenever she wanted? Wasn't that...sort of _huge_ in the Noble Houses? And, wait, 'Older than portkeys? How old _is_ this?'

Charissa's eyes flicked upward. 'Two hundred and...eighty-seven. Two hundred and eighty-seven years old. That's just the pendant, though, I bought the chain last week.'

Two hundred and...

What was...

Nope. She had absolutely no idea how to respond to this at all.

But Charissa was just grinning at her again. While Hermione stood frozen, she reached into the box, pulled the necklace out by the chain. She took the box back at the same time, slipping it back into her bag. 'To activate it, just hold it in your hand and say _suffugiō_. It'll also go on it's own if you're scared and thinking loudly enough about how much you want to escape.' After picking at the chain for a bit, she finally got the catch open. Stepping closer to Hermione, she slipped one hand around either side of her neck, somewhat awkwardly closing the chain again under her hair. 'Oh, and if you ever lose it, make sure you tell us right away. That's very important.'

'Ah.' It took Hermione a moment to find her voice back. Not only was she _completely_ thrown by this whole thing, but Charissa was rather close to her again, and she'd gone all warm and tingly. That on top of her shock had effectively stripped all power of speech. 'Er, why? I mean, no, that's a stupid question, I guess you wouldn't want just anyone popping up...'

'Well, actually, it'll get you through all the wards because my grandmother's blood in it. Come to think of it,' Charissa said, a little lower, as though voicing an afterthought, 'it'll probably get you through most Black wards as well, then.' She frowned slightly to herself for a moment, then shook her head, turning a smile back on Hermione. 'But yeah, if you ever lose it we'll need to get it back as quickly as possible, so no one can curse my grandmother through blood magic.'

'I...er...' Well, she guessed she was right about her assumption that this was sort of a huge deal. Even ignoring the basically keying her into _all_ the family wards and giving her a way to pop straight to the family manor _whenever she wanted_ , any mage trusting someone else with their blood was _really bloody serious_. It wasn't a thing they generally did. Honestly, she'd had no idea Dorea Potter trusted her that much. They'd only met a couple times, couldn't have spoken more than ten minutes total.

This was just... She had no idea how to handle this. She meant, she was only just starting to get used to this whole thing going on with Charissa. She hadn't even been able to refer to Charissa as her girlfriend _in her own head_ until four days ago. And here Charissa was doing something that, as far as Hermione understood magical British cultural stuff, was a _very big deal_. She just... She didn't know what she was doing. She had no idea what to say.

Perhaps luckily, Charissa quite effectively took away all need for her to find anything to say. She leaned even further forward, until she was right flush against Hermione, arms wrapping around behind her neck, and tilted slightly up as she had to every time, bringing her lips softly to Hermione's.

This was...

She just...

...

Ah, to hell with it.

Surrendering to the tingles running down her spine, the warmth rising in her chest, Hermione forcefully stopped thinking about any of that crap, and just kissed Charissa back. She let herself fall back to leaning against the wall again, only really half conscious of her own arms slinking around Charissa's waist. She was far too distracted. Charissa was far too soft and warm, lips dancing on hers slow and gentle, the occasional pass of breath against her skin wet and hot, and Hermione could suddenly forget she was outdoors on a winter night right now, the cold entirely banished by the warmth on her cheeks, the tapping of her heart against her throat. Just. Far too distracted. Charissa was very good at distracting her these days, she'd noticed.

Not that Charissa stayed slow and gentle. It was a gradual acceleration, a slow crescendo, Charissa's lips parting a little further, lingering a little longer, her slight form resting against her a little heavier, a little more and a little more with each second. When something noticeably smoother, noticeably hotter, noticeably wetter ran momentarily against Hermione's lower lip her breath caught in her chest for an instant, and she didn't even care that they were outside right now, practically anyone could walk up at any moment, one of her cousins could and _would_ come out to find her at any second, she just couldn't care, the eager heat within was drawing her on far too insistently, and she was slipping past Charissa's lips in the next instant, she was far too hot, Charissa tasted far too good, and she was just far too busy to care.

Though, she was for an instant distracted by the thought that Charissa tasted exactly as she always did — mostly tasteless, honestly, though with the slightest tinge of something that always struck her as vaguely like basil and honey, no idea what it was from. She'd really expected to notice some traces of marijuana smoke...not that she really know what that was like, she'd just expected _something_. Eh, not important.

She was quickly losing the capacity for any rational thought. She could almost _feel_ it happening, it was weird. With each press of Charissa's lips, every motion of her tongue, every nick of her teeth, every caress of her breath, she could feel herself get more and more _distracted_. All the little whisperings in her own head, the constant replay of fact and memory going on in the background she could ignore much of the time, even her internal commentary that never really seemed to slow, all of it turned to Charissa, an intense, almost tactile focus greater than she could honestly ever manage otherwise.

At least, mostly focused. She was having thoughts. They were sort of like those memory-images she got all the time, but things that hadn't actually happened before. Things that a part of her wanted to happen, was _begging_ to happen, and were growing increasingly hard to deny. Almost without even realising what she was doing, her hands started drifting downward, slipping over the curve of—

'Well, well, well.'

Hermione jumped, letting out an embarrassing squeak she would categorically deny had happened if she were asked later. She slid along the wall away from Charissa, turning to the source of the voice. Finding exactly who she'd both expected and dreaded: Dad's youngest sister, Tienne. Grinning at her like a bloody lunatic. 'Ah, I, er...'

She didn't react to Hermione's stuttering any more than to give her a teasing wink.

Hermione wouldn't be surprised if her face caught fire.

Tienne slinked closer, looking behind Hermione to Charissa with amusement sparkling in her dark eyes. 'And just who is this pretty thing?'

She had no idea what to say. This was just so incredibly awkward. But she was promptly distracted. Before she could even try to think to say anything, Charissa said, sounding perfectly casual, 'Her name is Hermione.'

Charissa said. _In French_.

While Tienne let out a sharp laugh, saying something about liking this one, Hermione wasn't listening to her. She whipped around on her heel, turning to stare at Charissa — who was still just smiling as easy as anything, seeming entirely unashamed at being caught...well, snogging, they'd been snogging. And Hermione had just— Nope, nope, don't think about that. ' _You speak French?'_ Whoops, that had come out a little higher and louder than she'd intended, oh well.

Charissa blinked at her for a second, one eyebrow raising a bit. 'Of course I speak French.'

Hermione opened her mouth to respond, then closed it again, frowning to herself. Well, okay, yes, that was sort of obvious when she thought about it. The working language of the ICW was and always had been French — she'd be shocked if practically everyone in the Noble Houses at least didn't learn it growing up. It'd just never really occurred to her before. 'You never said.'

Charissa's grin turned slightly teasing. 'You never asked.'

...That was true, she hadn't. Dammit.

And Tienne behind her started chuckling again. Because, well, they'd been talking in French, so she'd understood that. Great. This was just great.

Hermione let out a long sigh, rubbed at her face with both hands for a moment. Well. Might as well get it over with. 'Charissa, this is my Aunt Sébastienne.' Charissa gave Tienne a slightly strange look — because of her age, Hermione guessed. Tienne had been born an improbable twenty-four years after Dad, the eldest, so she was only nineteen, didn't really look old enough to be Hermione's aunt. 'And this is Charissa, ah...' And Tienne was staring at her, her grin unwavering. There was no way Hermione was going to get out of this without saying it. Ooh, this wasn't going to be fun. 'Girlfriend, she's my girlfriend.'

Tienne's grin only went wider. And, before Hermione could hardly move, she'd darted past her to grab Charissa by the arm and started pulling her toward the door, babbling about how she hadn't heard _any_ of this, Charissa simply _must_ come in and say hello to everyone.

Hermione let out a heavy sigh. Just perfect.

* * *

Yep. Just perfect.

After a torrent of introductions and a downpouring of teasing that had had Hermione's face flaming red the entire time, Charissa had ended up being invited to stay for _le réveillon_. The second Grand-maman had gotten it out, Mum had actually _cackled_. It seemed Hermione was the only one not having far too much fun with this. Charissa had slipped into the bathroom for a minute to "call" her mother — she had taken the phone from the kitchen with her, but Hermione was pretty sure she'd actually put up a silencing and apparated out and back in quick — and then she was staying. Which was...

Well, okay, it wasn't that bad. Honestly, she would have expected it to be some kind of torture. Sure, Tienne and Maylis had kept up an almost constant stream of teasing, and Théo was being a bit of a brat. But it hadn't been that bad otherwise. Sort of nice, actually, having her around for Christmas again. She didn't mind.

Though, perhaps it hadn't been wise for Charissa to add alcohol to...whatever it was Lily's friend had given her. Around ten or so, when Hermione's younger cousins were starting to disappear, ferried home by their parents or tucked away in one of the bedrooms, that was when the champagne had come out. There had already been wine with the main course earlier too, but either because she was rather smaller than Hermione or because she hadn't realised it was alcoholic and hadn't been paying attention, that had been too much for Charissa. By eleven, Hermione's lips were a little oddly numb, and she'd admit that she was maybe being slightly more silly than usual, but Charissa was practically wiped out.

Not that Hermione was complaining. Apparently, alcohol made Charissa rather...cuddly? Was that the word, cuddly? She'd noticed before Charissa was not exactly a touchy-feely sort of person. Kissing, fine, snogging, fine, the occasional hug here and there, fine, but not really interested in this sort of thing. And by _this sort of thing_ , she meant how they were squeezed into one of the armchairs together, the thing definitely not made for more than one person. Charissa was sort of laying half on top of her, actually, facedown with her arms slipped in around her waist, one leg over hers, head tucked under her chin.

After half-pulling Hermione to the chair in the first place, settling in, Charissa had muttered, 'Okay, _now_ I'm drunk.' Hermione hadn't been able to help a short giggle at that.

And it...it was rather nice. They had to have been laying here now for...well, she had no idea how long, really. She couldn't see a clock from here, but she'd long ago lost track of the conversation around them, and she noticed at a glance a few more people had disappeared, so probably a while. She was just so comfortable. She didn't think she'd ever been this completely, this thoroughly comfortable before. Maybe the alcohol turning her head slightly fuzzy was helping that along, she couldn't say for sure, but she preferred to think it was mostly Charissa. She was just so close, and warm, and soft, and beautiful, and she even _smelled_ amazing, Hermione thought it might be going to her head a little.

Yep. Perfect.

She could just sleep, right here. She wouldn't be surprised if she did a little.

Eventually, she didn't know how long later, she was shaken awake by a hand on her shoulder. Which she guessed meant she had fallen asleep, she hadn't noticed. 'Maïa, come on.' Her brain was being very sluggish, it took her a moment to recognise the voice as Tienne's. 'My brothers are all at home or asleep already, lazy bastards, and I can't carry you.'

Hermione blinked up at Tienne, who she was somewhat surprised to notice was dressed for bed. 'Mm, Rémy's not a bastard.' Of course, Dad and Eugène both were — by Grand-mère's first and second husband respectively, which she thought was kinda funny — but that wasn't really the point. No comment on the lazy part.

'Oh, he may not be as much of a bastard as the other two, but he's still a bastard.' Hermione snorted at that; that didn't make any sense. 'I don't know what the point is,' Tienne said as she dragged a reluctant and very sleepy-looking Charissa to her feet, 'of having three older brothers if they're not around when I need their help moving heavy things. Or people.'

'Mm.' After a few moments of effort, she managed to force herself to her feet, though she did stumble slightly, the world blurring around her. Wow, she was sleepy. What time was— Oh, two in the morning. That would do it.

The two of them, Charissa seeming hardly even a little conscious, followed Tienne through the living room messy with bottles and discarded plates and displaced pillows everywhere — she also noticed Aimée passed out on the sofa, the younger girl's hair a mess and visibly drooling, all right then — and into the hall, through another door. In the darkness, it took Hermione a second to recognise this as Rémy's old room, which she usually borrowed when staying here, her stuff visible in a couple places around.

Hermione blinked. She glanced at the bed, the only sleepable furniture in the room. Then at Charissa. Then at Tienne, who was giving her something of a teasing smirk (though somewhat weaker from exhaustion). She frowned for a second, then shrugged. They'd already been sleeping together in that chair for a couple hours there — what was the difference, really?

Tienne just had to get in a last shot in though, of course. Even as Charissa started pulling her jumper over her head, losing balance halfway through and plopping down to sit on the bed — Hermione somehow managed not to laugh at her — her silly aunt gave her another crooked grin, and said, 'Don't have too much fun now.'

'I really think we're just going to go straight back to sleep,' Hermione said. She gave a pointed look to Charissa, who had finally managed to shuck her jumper off over her head, looking very odd with her long hair mussed like crazy.

And then they were alone, Tienne closing the door behind her. Hermione made right for her bag, slipped out of her clothes and into her nightgown, slightly hampered with how uncoordinated she was from exhaustion. It was only as she was debating whether or not to take off the necklace Charissa had given her earlier — she settled on _not_ after a moment — that she remembered Charissa was actually in the room with her right now. And she'd just changed right in front of her. For a couple seconds, she'd been standing here in quite literally only her knickers. Erm. Whoops?

She turned to see Charissa was sitting on the bed, herself down to underclothes — a sort of chemise thing Hermione guessed she'd been wearing under her dress, along with another example of those weird, loose knickers British witches apparently all wore. Picking at something on her forearm, probably the straps for a wand holster. Staring at her. By the way she was staring at her, Hermione knew she'd been watching the whole time.

Heat flaring in her cheeks, she had to look away, trying not to fidget. Yeah. Whoops.

A moment later, both of Charissa's wand holsters were off, stashed in Hermione's bag where her cousins wouldn't stumble across them, and the both of them were slipping under the covers, Hermione flicking off the lamp at the side, plunging the room into blackness. She hadn't said a word since her retroactive embarrassment had struck, and she still didn't, just buried her hot face in her pillow, willing herself to go back to sleep and escape the awkward silence.

She heard the light shuffling of cloth before she felt her, Charissa's form softly coming against her back. She twitched at the tickling of her hair being shifted. Then started a second later, her heart instantly jumping into her throat. She knew exactly what _that_ feeling was: Charissa had laid a soft kiss, where her neck met her shoulder. Erm. Then another, slightly higher, and Hermione could feel nearly as well as seeing the shape of her lips, the soft caress sending tingles all up and down her spine. And another, and another, gradually trailing up, slow, and smooth, and...

And she was quite suddenly _very_ much awake.

She couldn't take it anymore. Hermione turned over onto her back, in seconds found those lips with hers. Charissa responded instantly. With rather more than Hermione had been expecting, really. Still soft, still warm and gentle, but Charissa's tongue was on hers already, still slow but also insistent, and while some part of Hermione far to the back of her head was a little concerned about what exactly was going on here, snogging her girlfriend _in bed_ , quite a larger part of her didn't much care at the moment, because this was _Charissa_ , and she was _here_ , and she was being so uncharacteristically soft and affectionate, and it was _nice_ , and she tasted of wine and chocolate now, and she was perfect, and she _didn't care_.

When Charissa slowly slunk a leg over her, settled into straddling her hips, Hermione was practically giddy, tingling from head to toe and chest tight with restrained breath. With the part of her that wasn't focused on lips and teeth and tongue, Hermione slipped her fingers down, ran them up Charissa's thighs, across her hips. After the barest second of hesitation, she went a little further, her fingers slipping under Charissa's top, meeting the smooth, hot skin of her sides. Charissa shifted against her slightly, apparently involuntary, a high sigh let out against Hermione's lips she couldn't help but smile a little at.

A part of her remembered, and in that second she had decided unconsciously, she didn't even really think about it.

One hand continued further up and to the middle of Charissa's back, the feel of muscles and tendons tensing and twisting under her fingers putting a smile on Hermione's face that was making the snogging part slightly awkward. And made her feel slightly weird about herself — what exactly was she smiling about anyway? But her other hand didn't follow, drifting down before she could second-guess herself, sliding over silken cloth along the curve of...well...

Well, her bum. That's where her hand was right now, yes. For the second time today, and also ever. Just the thought gave her the most peculiar thrill, the heat in her chest and, well, only getting sharper, and she couldn't help grinning to herself like a crazy person. No idea why, she was weird. Not that it really mattered at the moment, the grinning part she meant, because Charissa had almost instantly pulled away from her mouth with a huff of breath, head slipping up alongside hers.

This was probably one of the odder things she'd ever done. Well, she knew really it _wasn't_ that odd — grabbing her girlfriend's bum was actually rather normal, all things considered — but it certainly felt rather odd to her. From newness, she guessed. A part of her really couldn't believe any of this was—

The train of thought was suddenly cut off, by Charissa's mouth against her neck, rather harder than before, it actually almost hurt, but it was also somehow _wonderful_ in the strangest way she didn't really care to interpret right now, a sudden shock radiating outward setting her heart to stuttering, her arms tightening and fingers clenching, her legs shifting and toes curling, an involuntary moan forced through her throat, an odd hot throbbing in her lips, in her fingertips, in her...

Well.

She still couldn't believe this was happening. But she was really starting to have difficulty caring.

But it was only a couple blissful seconds later that Charissa went lax, face again pulling slightly away, letting out a short groan. Hermione couldn't help frowning slightly at the recognisable tone of that groan: frustration. Huh. It took her a second to find her voice, and even when she did it was oddly thin and shaky. Well, maybe not so oddly, she guessed. 'What is it?'

And Charissa's voice, somewhat to Hermione's surprised, sounded nothing but...well, exhausted. 'Had to be _now_ you...' She sighed a little, the sharp sensation of her breath passing over the wetness on Hermione's neck making her shudder. 'Sorry.'

'W-what for?'

'I'm sleepy. Very sleepy.'

Oh. Well. Okay. Probably for the best, honestly. She wasn't entirely sure she was thinking straight right now — in fact, she was rather positive she wasn't. So. Probably best. 'It's okay. You can sleep.'

'Sorry,' Charissa said again, her voice a low, thin whisper.

'It's fine, silly. Go to sleep.'

Charissa hummed a little. She shifted against Hermione slightly — which really wasn't making that, er, throbbing situation any better — raised her head to give Hermione one last, soft, lingering kiss. Then she slid off of her, settled in to lay on her side next to her, a few inches away.

Well. That just wouldn't do. Hermione tilted to her side, slid up against her. Which required sort of awkwardly folding her arm under the pillow, but that was fine, she didn't care. The other hand she hesitated with slightly before curving around and resting on Charissa's stomach — she was slightly surprised to feel skin instead of cloth, thing must have gotten pushed up a bit earlier, but she wasn't exactly complaining. After a short moment, Charissa's shoulders rose and fell slightly, then she shifted a little, folding closer back into Hermione, until there was nothing between them but a couple layers of thin cloth, flush nearly from shoulder to knee.

Which was interesting. And distracting. Charissa might drift off before long, she guessed, but Hermione doubted she'd be able to get to sleep any time soon. But, her face buried in Charissa's hair, she found she didn't particularly care. Hermione could wait.

She smelled of cherries and rosemary.

* * *

Bwðigys, Yceniþ (IPA: /bʉ.'ði.gɨs/ "boo- **thee** -gis", /ə.'kɛ.nɨθ/ "uh- **keh** -nith") _— Brīþwn versions of historical Latinised names; the Iceni revolt against the Romans is a thing that actually happened, and their queen at the time really was named Boudica (which means basically the same thing as "Victoria", which I think is interesting)_

[there was some debate among experts whether eidetic memory even existed] — _True. Photographic memory, which is usually conflated with eidetic memory, is believed to be a myth, but many people have doubts true eidetic memory exists outside a minority of young children, who quickly grow out of it anyway._

[There is no reason the sounds in the word "apple" _must_ mean what they do] — _What Greengrass is hinting at here is the inherent arbitrariness in language, a fundamental principle of linguistics. You know, that there is no real connection between the sounds we're making and the things we're describing, just an agreed-upon association that only has any meaning because, well, we agree on the meaning. I guess it might be a little strange to think about for some people, but that's theoretical linguistics for you._

[cursive writing used in ancient Egypt for thousands of years] — _For the most part, Egyptians only used hieroglyphs when carving shit into stone. When actually writing on papyrus with ink, they almost always used hieratic, all the way from the protodynastic period until the first couple centuries CE, when it was replaced with demotic (which had been developed for informal use long before that) and later coptic. Exceptions, where the familiar hieroglyphs were painstakingly drawn on papyrus, do exist, but were almost universally religious documents — as an example, most iterations of the Book of the Dead from the Thirteenth through Twentieth Dynasties, after which they switched to hieratic._

ẖopn-sheleẖit (IPA: /ħɔp pn̍ | ̍ʃə 'lɛ ħɪt/ roughly "hopin' shuh- **leh** -hit") — _Taken straight from a Coptic dictionary, though tinkered with somewhat._

Sēt (IPA: /set/ roughly "sate") — _Modern name for the ancient Egyptian god Set (which was originally something like_ /su:təχ/ _, "_ _ **soo**_ _-tuh_ _ **h**_ " _). The stuff about the colours black and red is partially made up. It_ _ **is**_ _true, we know from a few different sources, that red hair in ancient Egypt was associated with Set, especially around the Ramesside era, so it's not coming from nowhere. The following comments made of modern Kemetic (ir)religion are headcanon accurate._

Akēxit (IPA: /(ʕ)xe.kʰɪt/ roughly "(uh-) **hay** -kit") — _Name totally made up._

Bakin-Sēt (IPA: /βə.k'in set/ roughly "vuh- **keen** **sate** ") — _Made-up modern name for the ancient Egyptian city of Sepermeru, in Upper Egypt, home to the powerful Set cult of the Ramesside era (Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties, mostly). A name used in casual speech, anyway, not the technically proper name. The modern magical settlement isn't on the exact same location anymore (obviously), but nearby. Supposed to mean literally "city of Set", but I'm playing with Coptic, who knows if I even got close. Uh, Upper Egypt is to the south, for those who don't know, the Nile delta region in the north is Lower Egypt._

le réveillon — _French, Christmas Eve dinner. It's a thing, look it up if you're curious. In case you're wondering, as far as I know giving wine to fourteen- or fifteen-year-olds wouldn't be unusual. Most other Western cultures are less sensitive about that than Americans are._

Avwn Clīd (IPA: /'a.vʉ̃(n) klyd/, roughly " **ah** -vun **clued** ") — _A river in northern Wales, called Afon Clwyd in Welsh._

Suffugiō — _Latin, "I flee (to safety)"_

* * *

 _omg, I'm sorry about how late this chapter is. Just, the chapter completely hated me, no idea why, and on top of that I'm in the middle of the most annoying insomnia episode. Ugh. By the time the chapter was **supposed** to be done, I don't even know if I had the first scene done even. It was bad._

 _It seems to be getting better now, so. Hopefully I should have a TRW chapter for next week. Hopefully._

 _Until next time,  
~Wings_


	26. Fourth Year — The Warmth Before Dawn

_BLUH._

* * *

 _January 12, 1995_

* * *

In a private room, the upper floor of a pub on a backstreet of what locals usually called na Caoimhe, the largest magical settlement in Ireland — or, in fact, the entire Celtic world — a group of people gathered. People many of the more powerful in British society preferred to pretend didn't exist. Muggleborns who refused to submit to a culture that saw them as something less. Halfbloods and purebloods who had been expelled from their Houses, Noble and Common, for unapologetic adherence to opinions or loyalty to individuals their families found unacceptable. Those with traits carried on creature blood they could not hide, those innocents doubly-cursed with lycanthropy and poverty. A few allies, themselves more fortunate but sympathetic to their neighbours' plight.

As the door opened once again, the woman of the hour walking into the room, one of those allies got to her feet. Half-drained glass of wine lifted above her head, voice raised in a baffling mix of approval and sarcasm, Lily Evans Black called out, 'All hail to the conquering hero!'

While a tide of laughter and cheers spread across the room, intermixed with shouted toasts in various languages, Emma Granger just smirked, seeming entirely pleased with herself.

It took nearly a minute for Emma, holding her hands up for silence, to get everyone to be quiet again, a grin twitching at her lips seemingly despite herself. 'Alright, alright,' she said, once she had a reasonable expectation of being heard. 'As you probably heard, the Council of Family Law finally got their heads out of their collective arses—' Emma had to raise her voice a little, cutting over a burst of laughter from a few quarters, another round of cheers from a few halfbloods in a corner. '—in no small part thanks to our friends in the Noble Houses of Black, Longbottom, and Potter.'

'Yer _very_ welcome, Madame Granger,' came a call in a high, very slurred voice.

It took Andi, standing next to Emma with a bundle of parchment hugged to her chest, an impressively short amount of time to identify the completely unfamiliar-looking young woman as her daughter. But then, Lily guessed, the Auror robes and the vibrant orange-red hair probably helped. 'Dora,' she said, sounding almost painfully exasperated, 'what are you _doing_ here?'

'Celebratin', obviously.'

'Shouldn't you be in the Valley?'

'Mu _-uuumm_ , it's my day off! Get off my back for two seconds. Another round on me!' Dora's half-coherent, drunken shout was met with another chorus of cheers from half the room, leaving Andi helplessly shaking her head.

Sometimes, Lily thought she had her work cut out for her, trying to manage Charissa. Then she remembered Dora existed, and admitted it could have been worse.

'Anyway,' Emma shouted over the crowd after a few seconds, 'Andi here will be setting some papers up on a table somewhere. There will be a form and a questionnaire for all of you to fill out, just get them sent to Ted whenever, no rush on that.'

Andi cut in with, 'That's Ted Tonks Black, by the way.'

'Yes, yes. We'll be confirming whatever you tell us with the Office of Records. And obviously we'll be taking anything we find there at face value, because we know British law is entirely fair and just in all instances.' A ripple of laughter swept across the room, setting Emma to smirking again. 'But, seriously, we'll probably be accepting most applicants with no fuss, but we might have to arrange interviews with some of you. We can't be letting just anyone into the House, now can we?'

Lily had to snort that. Half the time, she wondered if Emma had any idea what she was doing. The other half, she was convinced Emma knew _exactly_ what she was doing, and that that was the entire point.

She'd learned very early in the game — the basics before starting at Hogwarts, even — that the legal situation for muggleborns on the magical side of Britain was shite. With the way the law worked, a person's rights were entirely derived from their membership of a House. It didn't matter _which_ House, just a House. Essentially, any considerations made for a person were based on the assumption that they had a Lord or Master of their House out there who would kick up a fuss if they were treated unfairly. Generally, it was even difficult for unattached people to find employment, or at least fair employment. Without a House to back them up, they were quite likely to get a contract that was little better than slavery — and sometimes not even better at all.

The only real solution for a muggleborn was to marry into one House or another, or show enough talent to be recruited into a profession that would stand for them in absence of a House proper. That had originally been Lily's intent in trying to become an Auror — the Order had something of a reputation for protecting their people even when they were in the wrong, and she had the talent to make it, so why not. She'd been doubly fortunate to have a marriage to the heir of a Noble House more or less fall in her lap. James had been weirdly obsessed with her since practically the first day of first year, she still had no clue why. She'd be lying if she said the legal and financial advantages in marrying him hadn't been a large part of why she'd entertained his pursuit of her in the first place. At some point along the line, maybe a couple years after they'd already been married, she'd managed to fool herself into thinking she loved him — and she was half-convinced now that's what it was, she'd fooled herself — but that had been the original idea.

Honestly, if divorce would've left her without a House to go to she probably would've put up with James longer than she had. But since she'd known Dora would have been eager to take her in there really hadn't been much point to torturing herself any longer. Silly girl had adopted her practically before the divorce had even gone through.

She knew full well she'd gotten lucky. Most other muggleborns around her age she'd met hadn't been nearly as fortunate. Some had managed to worm their way into one House or another, usually through marriage, but many hadn't managed even that. Some, she knew, made their livings in professions that weren't generally spoken of in polite company.

And while the plight of muggleborns was closer to her heart for the obvious reason, they weren't the only ones who had the same problem. If a person were expelled from the House of their birth, and weren't close enough to anyone in another to arrange an adoption or marriage, they were basically screwed. Hags and vampires were born with no House. People of mixed-species ancestry — part-giants, for the most part, though there were tiny minorities of others — usually had the same problem. Werewolves were not universally but almost always expelled from their House upon infection.

What Emma was doing was, she knew, not the original intent. Originally, she'd just wanted to create a House of Granger. Which on its own would have been unique — Lily didn't think she'd ever heard of a muggleborn just going off and starting her own house, if only because the Council of Family Law would never have allowed it. She'd _certainly_ never heard of a muggle woman doing it on her magical daughter's behalf. It had simply never happened before, or at least not since the Statute, before which records were fragmentary and the law had worked rather differently anyway.

But, as the Council had delayed, resisting pressure from several allied Noble Houses, word of exactly what Emma had been attempting had somehow spread. First in a trickle, and then in a flood, Emma had been buried under owls from dozens and dozens and _dozens_ of people, all in the invisible underclass of Celtic magical society, asking if it wouldn't be possible for them to join her House, should she ever get the thing approved. When Emma had learned just how bad things were for literally thousands of people all across the country, she had started spreading the word _herself_ , making it known House Cherwell, as she'd renamed it, would be considering any and all applicants for adoption.

Quite nearly every single person in this room would be filling out those forms of hers, and almost all of them would be adopted into the newly-formed House in the end. And not just the people here. There were _thousands_ who couldn't be here today for various reasons who would be applying as well. Fifteen years from now — that was about when Lily expected Emma to finally step down as regent, handing the reins over to Hermione, who was already the Mistress of the House on paper — they would probably _still_ be interviewing people for adoption.

What Emma was doing here was absolutely _enormous_. In muggle terms, she was effectively unionising the entire underclass of society in one fell swoop, while simultaneously founding what could _easily_ be a political organisation to be reckoned with in a few years.

The first half, she was sure Emma was entirely aware of. She even thought that was much of the point. The other half? She wasn't sure Emma had run the numbers on that, considered the implications. Taken all together, the Noble Houses made somewhere between six and nine percent of the population, depending on which estimate one looked at, something like that. With how they bickered with each other, even the largest alliance might only directly represent two percent of the country. Assuming Emma managed to take in the entirety of the population not bound to any particular House who weren't guilty of one (legitimate) crime or another, and even excluding any allies among poorer Common Houses she will _certainly_ make along the way, whoever leads House Cherwell a decade from now could easily find herself speaking for a tenth of the entire country.

Revolutions had been accomplished with far less.

Certainly, some joining the House were even expecting it.

Lily wasn't entirely sure if Emma was aware of all that or not. But she was half-certain that, if she were, the possibility of _taking over the goddamn country_ at some point in the future had been incorporated into the plan. She wasn't sure if she should be terrified or exhilarated.

No matter the exact result, one thing was for certain: the Celtic Nations had simply not been prepared for Emma Granger.

For the next minutes, Emma made her way around the room. Receiving congratulations, and thanks, and even, Lily suspected, a few offers of fealty. To Hermione and the House, technically, but since Emma was her regent, and Hermione quite possibly didn't even know about any of this yet, they were coming to her. By the look of it, Emma just politely brushed them off, every time looking very surprised and more than a little awkward.

Nope. Emma didn't quite grasp the full significance of what she was doing. Or she didn't fully understand what it meant to the people she was doing it for. That much, at the very least, was clear. Which wouldn't stop her from doing it anyway, but still.

These were going to be a very interesting couple of decades coming up, here. Who would have thought the British equivalent to Grindelwald would be a muggle woman?

Eventually, Emma had come to her table, sinking into the chair next to Lily with a heavy sigh. Smiling around her wineglass, Lily said, 'Long day?'

'I was already quite exhausted with once again arguing with the Council then fighting my way through bloody reporters, thank you.' Emma grabbed at the bottle on the table, pouring herself a glass. After taking a rather sizeable gulp, she said, 'On the one hand, giving journalists magic could theoretically be a brilliant idea. On the other hand, I really wish they'd leave me alone.'

She couldn't help smiling again. 'Believe me, I know. Since Éjbevissza, I've mostly taken to shadow-walking everywhere just to avoid them. Even worked an exemption into the Ministry wards for myself and everything.' Really, by now fascination with her had died down more than enough she shouldn't have to bother anymore. It was just habit.

Emma grumbled bitterly into her wine.

'Oh, don't be like that,' Lily said, giving her another grin. 'You're doing something very important here. You should be proud. I wish I'd thought of it.'

The grumbling ceased immediately, and Emma just silently stared at her, eyes somewhat narrowed. And kept staring at her, for long, almost wary moments. Lily was tempted to quick peak behind her eyes to see what she was thinking, but didn't, knowing she'd regret it later. She always felt dirty using any sort of magic on people who didn't know how to defend themselves against it — the person being a muggle, and therefore incapable of ever learning, only made it worse. Actually, she had heard the rumour that muggles _could_ learn mind magic more than once, but not the point. 'Can I ask you something potentially uncomfortable?'

Lily blinked for a second; she'd gotten a little distracted by her own thoughts there. 'Ah, sure.'

'Do you regret marrying James?'

She winced. Well, Emma had certainly been right to think that was a potentially uncomfortable question, hadn't she. She considered a moment, sipping absently at her wine, before shrugging. 'That's hard to answer.'

'How so?'

'James is a complete and total arse.' She still felt somewhat awkward saying things like that in public, but she _shouldn't_ be — it wasn't her job to defend him anymore — and, really, it was just true. 'And, well, he always has been. If you'd seen the way he behaved at Hogwarts, or the way he talks about certain people, you wouldn't have any doubts about that either.' Honestly, it was ridiculous how firmly he still held on to hatred for Sev, and even some of their other old classmates. Slytherins, mostly, but not always. Sirius was worse, granted, but James still acted like a petulant child sometimes. It was just silly. 'Sometimes, I really have to wonder how I managed to convince myself marrying him would be a good idea. I did have other options, you know. Most wouldn't have been much better, but...

'But, you know.' She gave a little helpless shrug. 'James might have otherwise been a mistake, but I did get things I like out of it. It's hard to say I regret having ever married him while my children exist. I certainly don't regret them, as much of a headache as Charissa and Linden can be sometimes.'

Emma let out a snort, shaking her head to herself. 'Almost get tired of hearing that name, honestly. Most of Hermione's letters home have at least mentioned Charissa for three years now.'

'Yeah, I'm not—' Lily flinched at the flare of magic coming from the right, and with the barest, instinctive flicker of will raised a shimmering orange shield around the table, a bludgeoning hex splashing against it a moment later. A glance along its trajectory showed... Okay, apparently Dora was getting in fights with people in pubs now. She guessed that could happen when people were drinking, but still. Very silly. At least they were only throwing around bludgeoning and stinging charms, nothing serious. Should probably keep the shield up anyway, just in case — it wasn't like Emma could protect herself from a stray jinx.

Belatedly, Lily was rather glad no one was paying attention to them: she hadn't thought to reach for her wand before bringing the shield up. Everyone knew she was a sorceress, but people always looked at her funny when she demonstrated it.

'Sorry,' she said, turning back to Emma. 'I think I'll just keep this going until that idiocy over there calms down.'

'Maybe a good idea.' Lily frowned at Emma's slightly absent tone, then followed Emma's gaze to her own wrists, and sighed. She'd thought a muggle wouldn't have noticed the significance of that, that she'd managed to cast a shield charm this large and solid without a wand. Apparently Emma was more clever than that. Oh well. Thankfully, Emma just took a moment to regather herself, then moved on without comment. 'Have to admit I don't know much about Linden—'

'He's more or less his father in miniature.'

Lily didn't miss the slight wince cross Emma's face. 'Well, that would do it, then. But I can definitely see how Charissa would be a handful.' A smirk twitching at Emma's face, she said, 'And here I thought Hermione was bad. Allow me to say: _neener, neener, neener_.'

Despite herself, Lily couldn't help letting out a snort. 'Just imagine how much fun her husband is going to have.'

Emma frowned at her for a moment. Then nodded. 'Ah, I assume James is going to be arranging a proper marriage for her eventually.'

'Well, she is going to be fifteen soon. I wouldn't be surprised if she's engaged by the end of the summer. That's when it usually happens.'

Emma jumped, then fumbled for a moment, nearly dropping her glass. Once she finally had herself back under control, licked clean the thumb she'd slopped wine all over, she said, 'Really? That young?'

With a helpless shrug, drained the rest of her glass. Tipping backwards like that, she nearly lost control of the magic holding the shield charm in place, barely managed to hold the plaited threads together before they could spring apart. Stupid thing. Pouring herself another glass, she said, 'That's not that young, really. People are almost never married before their NEWTs, and most of the nobility is engaged by sixteen, but it's not unheard of for even young children to be engaged. You know Morag MacDougal?'

Looking distinctly uncomfortable with the subject, Emma nonetheless answered easily enough. 'Yeah. The girls' roommate.'

Lily nodded. 'She was engaged before she turned three.'

'You're fucking joking.'

She blinked — Emma didn't often curse that harshly. 'Nope. Boy called Blair MacEwan. He's in the year above them, a Hufflepuff. The Mac Dhubhghaills and the Mac Eoghains were rivals for a very long time, but it's been something of a tradition since, oh, about the Seventeenth Century for them to intermarry every generation or two, to try to keep a lid on it. So their situation is unusual, but that sort of thing does happen.'

For long seconds, Emma just silently stared at her. 'I...' She shook her head to herself, rubbed at her forehead with a long sigh. 'You mages are just so ridiculous sometimes.'

Lily just shrugged. While she'd admit that was definitely true, 'It's not really that different than in some muggle cultures. Many places in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, arranged marriages still dominate. Actually, in some of those places, it's worse than it is here — at least here nothing goes through without the consent of both parties.'

'Could Morag really consent at two years old?'

'The betrothal didn't need her consent. The marriage itself does.' Giving Emma another smirk, Lily said, 'But I'm not particularly worried about Charissa. Do you really think I'd sit back and let James marry her off to someone she doesn't approve of, divorce or no?'

Seemingly reluctantly, Emma smirked back. 'I really don't think you need to interfere at all. Charissa is well capable of standing up to her father for herself.'

Well. That was a good point.

Shaking her head to herself, under her breath, Emma muttered, 'Well, I always did know your daughter would break mine's heart. Just didn't know it'd be like this, or this soon.'

Once again, Lily tried not to feel too guilty about that. She'd known from the beginning — even before the beginning, technically — that getting too close to Charissa would end badly for Hermione. But it hadn't been her place to stop it. They both needed to feel out their relationships on their own, for good or ill, there was nothing she could do about that. Well, nothing she _should_ do. And, really, 'I'm mostly pleased she won't be getting her neck broken, honestly.' Emma blinked at her in surprise, so Lily shrugged. 'You try raising a sociopath with superpowers sometime. It's bracing, let me tell you.'

Emma grimaced. 'Yeah, I can imagine it would be. I have problems enough trying to be responsible about it, and my girls are mostly normal. Too early to tell with Gwenn, I guess, and Hermione's got her memory thing, but otherwise.'

'Hermione is exceptionally powerful, actually.' Lily took a slow sip from her wine, weathering as she did a long, surprised look from Emma. 'We're not talking sorceress-level powerful, not quite. Not like Charissa or myself. But far above average, yes.'

Emma stared at her for another moment, then slowly turned away, blinking to herself. 'Huh. I had no idea, actually.'

'I hadn't expected you to. You can't feel it like I can.'

'Disadvantage non-magical parents have raising magical children, I guess.'

Not even close to what Lily would put at the top of the list — accidental magic considered, wards were the only way she'd ever been able to enforce even something so mild as a time-out — but it would be on the list, yes. 'Imagine how much fun my parents must have had with me.'

It might say something unfortunate about herself, but Lily couldn't help a private smirk at the way Emma winced.

* * *

 _January 22nd, 1995_

* * *

Bella froze her face, keeping the hard glare inside from rising to the surface, and considered how to phrase her response.

Sometimes, she allowed herself to think in the privacy of her own head that kids Sorted into the other three houses had it easy. As far as she knew, no one else had to deal with this shite, this subtle maneuvering and less subtle sniping at each other her housemates were constantly in the middle of. It was a pain. Most of the time, she didn't mind it too much, could say or do the right thing to get everyone to leave her alone — she was, in fact, rather better at it than she would have expected — but other times it was the most fucking annoying thing, she hated it.

If someone were to ask, which no one ever did, she would say she had three Slytherin friends in her year. Which was almost as good as saying she had three friends in her year — the other houses were annoyingly wary around Slytherins for reasons she still didn't quite understand. The first she'd met was Énna Selwyn. He was actually perfectly nice. Well, nice in a somewhat cold, snarky way, but honestly she was more uncomfortable with conventionally nice people than anything. She knew he was first cousins with the twins, which was how she'd met Alex and Hesper in the first place. She also knew that meant they were relations of some kind, but she honestly didn't know what degree. Fourth cousins? Something like that. Énna wasn't particularly interesting, but he was...how should she put it? Inoffensive? He didn't annoy her, at least, and they got on well enough she didn't mind spending time around him. Whatever.

The second, and probably her best friend she had her own age, was Astoria Greengrass. Astoria she actually liked. She was funny. In that clever, quick, slightly cruel way a lot of people had, but still funny. And her mother, whom Bella had met a few times by now, was pretty great too. She was honest enough with herself to admit that wasn't Astoria's only draw on her. As young as they still were, she could already tell Astoria would be an incredibly powerful witch when she matured — she was on the list of future sorcerers currently in Hogwarts Bella had tentatively identified. She knew, both from books and observation, that mages were unconsciously attracted to the most powerful among their number, falling into orbit around them without hardly realising they were doing it. That was part of it, she knew that, but Astoria was pleasant enough company she really didn't mind.

Besides, she was firmly entrenched in Charissa's orbit by now anyway, so it didn't really matter.

The last was Clíona Monroe. Oh, Clíona. Sometimes, she really didn't like Clíona. They'd only met in the first place because she was Énna's second cousin. And sure, they got along much of the time — Bella wouldn't put up with her nearly as much otherwise. Much of the time, she vaguely reminded her of Mandie, which was probably why she'd started putting up with her in the first place. Though she couldn't say exactly what it was about Clíona that reminded her of Mandie. They looked nothing alike. She guessed their voices might be slightly similar, but they spoke English with entirely different accents, so she usually didn't notice. (The thought of such a good little pureblood speaking Mandie's vulgar, Punjabi-touched Scouse was honestly rather hilarious.) And it was only when she was nice that she reminded Bella of Mandie anyway. And she really had no clue why.

And she wasn't nice all the time. Like now. It had just been some random comment about Bella spending so much time with the duelling team. There hadn't been anything objectionable in the words themselves, but more in the way they'd been said, a subtle mocking bite on her voice. It was hard to explain. Of course, Clíona _had_ said objectionable words about the duelling team before, so Bella didn't even have to try very hard to guess what she was thinking. Mostly about Neville, which she still didn't understand. What did it matter if he was a Hufflepuff? He might be a bit soft, sure, but he was _seriously_ powerful, future sorcerer powerful, and while it might take a lot to get him angry he was still potentially dangerous enough crossing him would be a _very bad idea_. Mocking Gryffindors constantly she could almost understand — with very few exceptions, every single one she'd ever met was an idiot. She didn't get the Hufflepuff hate, though.

But _because_ the insult was so subtle, she had to consider carefully how to respond. Any response she would make would have to be equally subtle, or risk seemingly overly sensitive, and therefore weak. Looking weak tempted the scavengers to pounce. Of course, _not_ responding was also a possibility. But then she would have to not respond in such a way to make it obvious that she'd noticed the slight, it was just so far beneath her she didn't care. Which, honestly, she didn't. Just getting that across was the problem.

The slight smirk on Astoria's lips, making it obvious she'd noticed both Clíona's stealth insult and Bella's longer-than-usual hesitation, was really not helping.

God, she hated this shite.

She was just opening her mouth to casually mention they had a practice in a couple days — hopefully Clíona wouldn't be stupid enough to overextend jumping on that, she'd really hate having to verbally beat her over the head — when she was interrupted with a sudden explosion. Not a physical explosion, but one of magic, one of emotion. A rising sense from deep within of warmth, of lightness, of safety, an absolute certainty that she was cherished by someone who would thoroughly obliterate anyone or anything that dared to harm her, the almost giddy happiness that came with that. Despite knowing everyone in the common room could see her right now, she couldn't hold a thoughtless grin from spreading across her face.

But that was fine. She wasn't the only person smiling from the sudden presence of the _patrōnus_.

The blue-silver light, taking the form of a bird somewhat smaller than her head, came to rest weightlessly on her shoulder. No sensation of pressure or motion, yes, but the touch did touch her with a stronger force of white magic, the warmth and silliness filling her chest, so powerfully it took all she had not to burst into helpless giggles. And then the _patrōnus_ was speaking with Charissa's voice, a soft, intimate whisper directly into her ear. 'Entrance Hall. If you would, Cousin.'

She couldn't help a slight flare of disappointment when the glowing bird, and the nigh-overwhelming emotions that came with it, abruptly disappeared. But the subtle flickers of similar feelings on the faces of Slytherins around the room quickly replaced it with amusement.

She didn't hesitate an instant, folding her Charms work into her textbook. 'If you'll excuse me, my advocate is calling.' Technically, Charissa hadn't _ordered_ she come up — they'd worked out something of a code back in the fall, the _if you would, Cousin_ made it a request. But then, Charissa hardly ever ordered her to do anything. She'd always seemed leery of saying anything that could even be interpreted as one, really. As her advocate for a few more months yet, it was well within her rights to, and they'd months ago set boundaries about what was acceptable to ask of her and what wasn't. But she still rarely did.

It was slightly odd, but Bella thought she understood why, so she'd never said anything about it.

The three let her leave without comment, not even from Clíona. Which wasn't surprising, really — what was she going to do, make a subtle stab at _Charissa_ , of all people? Barely two minutes later, she was stepping into the Entrance Hall. It only took her an instant of glancing around to see Charissa wasn't here. In fact, nobody was here. The ridiculously high-ceilinged hall, looking all over-indulgent with its marble and gold filigree and jewels in those bloody huge hourglasses, was completely empty, save for herself. All right then, must have made it up before Charissa had made it down. She walked over toward the staircase, her steps echoing noticeably in the empty space, and leaned against the banister, settled in to wait.

When she turned at the sound of a door opening, the familiar creak of the smaller portal set into the huge double doors of the main entrance, she blinked for a second in surprise. What had Charissa been doing— And she was a bloody idiot. Charissa had been out of the castle this morning, at the Ministry to finish the paperwork recognising her apprenticeship to Lily. Obviously she'd be coming in from the grounds. Stupid. She noticed instantly Charissa was wearing what she recognised as comparatively formal dress, her slender frame obscured by baggy trousers a solid black, little silver lines glinting along the seams, a sort of vest-looking sleeveless thing a deep red, under a long cloak of black and silver, currently thrown back behind her shoulders, trailing past her tightly-plaited hair all the way down to the backs of her ankles. _Comparatively_ formal because that wouldn't be good enough in a lot of situations, but it was fine for a young apprentice of a mage of Lily's renown to be seen in in public. Which meant nicer than she would usually wear, but not really fancy or anything.

It distantly occurred to her Charissa would probably be somewhat altering how she presented herself in public, so she wouldn't reflect badly on her mother — the expectations surrounding an apprentice were different than around a daughter. Bella had to wonder exactly how she was going to go about it, how well she was going to manage it. Charissa wasn't nearly as socially conscientious as she thought she was.

Charissa only took a couple steps into the Hall before noticing her, where she stopped, jerked her head a little in a gesture Bella easily took to mean they were going outside. All right, then. Bella walked across the Hall toward her — which took far too long, this room was much larger than it really needed to be — feeling only slightly self-conscious under that solid, intense gaze Charissa had. She was well aware that way Charissa had of staring made other people uncomfortable. It had been slightly intimidating at first, sure, but she was mostly used to it by now.

She'd actually heard whispered rumours Charissa was a legilimens. But that was ridiculous, if she had been slipping into Bella's head she knew her mind well enough she would have noticed by now. Just another silly rumour, there were always a few about her increasingly notorious cousin floating around.

And then they were out the door, walking across the grounds, crusted in a layer of snow turned brilliant by the early afternoon sun. Bella couldn't help squinting for a moment at the sudden brightness, her shoulders unconsciously rising, arms wrapping around herself at the first touch of bitterly cold wind. Dammit. Stupid Highland winter.

For a moment, she felt the weight of Charissa's hand on her shoulder, then a blanket of tingling magic fell over her, covering her in a thin layer of dry heat. She immediately relaxed, gave a smile up at Charissa even as she pulled her hand away. It didn't escape her notice that warming charm had been done wandlessly. Charissa had said, in one of her lessons, that she had a small-but-growing list of charms she could do without using her wand at all, but she needed to actually touch the thing she was charming to get it to work. Which was still better than Bella could manage — Charissa'd taught her the meditations she needed to reach for her magic and pull it up, but it'd been months now and she hadn't even managed to touch it yet. Of course, Charissa _had_ said it'd taken even her almost a year to achieve her first weak, sloppy wandless casting, so she tried not to feel too bad about that.

The first words out of Charissa's mouth, as they gradually crossed the grounds, the light breeze pulling at her hair dragging wisps of glittering snow dancing above their heads, were not exactly what she'd been expecting. 'How many languages do you know?'

Bella blinked at her for a second — somehow, that had never come up in their lessons thus far. And she knew it was lesson-related, since Charissa had said it in her tutor voice, all low and slightly sharp. And then she blinked for another second, because she wasn't exactly sure. Might as well just run down the list, she could usually do that without thinking too hard. She listed them off in the order she'd learned them, which she usually did automatically, counting off on her fingers. 'Ah, English, Cymraeg, Gaeilge, Français, Nederlands, Norsk, Dansk, Pãjābī, Latīna, Polszczyzna, Italiano, Brīþwn, Gàidhlig—' She broke to take a breath. '—Brezhoneg, Provençau, ɕsĦaʃçʂx, Plattdüütsch, Oberdeutsch, Català, Elliniká — Ðimotikí, of course, I haven't been able to find anyone who speaks Klasikí—' It occurred to her only halfway through the sentence that she'd been saying that in Greek. Whoops. '—Türkçe, I'm almost done with nXēmi, and I'm working on Melyc̀cil and Tounsi. So, almost twenty-two, two more on the way. Why?'

She noticed the faintest traces of an amused smile pulling at Charissa's lips. 'Well, as long as we have a bunch of foreigners just outside Hogsmeade, I figured we should add a few.'

'I have been doing that,' Bella said with a shrug. 'I've almost doubled how many I knew this time last year.' She realised how ridiculous that sounded. It was rather absurd being an omniglot was sometimes, it was better not to think about it.

'Even so.' She paused for a moment, stepping over a shallow drift of snow blown onto the path to the gates. 'I didn't catch some of that, you slipped into other languages for a bit there.' Oh, whoops... 'There was Kemetic and Melīx in there, right?'

Bella nodded. 'I'm not perfect in the first yet, and I'd be lucky to hold a conversation in the second, but yes.'

'Belẽs?'

'Erm, no, no Belẽs yet. That's what the Belak speak, right, magical Crete? It's on my list.' That wasn't even a joke, she had physically written up a list of languages she definitely wanted to pick up at some point. Most of them she already knew were just from bumping into people, and pestering them until she had it, but she still had a few enormous gaps in her linguistic knowledge — her eventual goal was to be able to drop herself pretty much anywhere in the world and find at least one language in common with the people there. By some odd twist of fate she was still missing Spanish and Russian, as well as Albanian and a couple Slavic tongues, but non-European languages were pathetically underrepresented. Her list was mostly made of African and Asian languages, as well as a spattering of the aboriginal languages still used by the magical communities of America, and learning a few non-human languages wouldn't be a bad idea either. Mermish, Elvish, at least one variety of Giant speech, she was pretty sure the hags had their own language, and she knew the centaurs had a few. Fae tongues if she could get them — Gobbledegook and whatever the carīdwð spoke, she didn't even know what it was called, were both on the list, though finding someone willing to teach her the first would be difficult and the second all but impossible, so they weren't really a priority.

'Okay, then. We're going to the Belak camp.'

Bella couldn't help smiling.

* * *

Bella frowned at Ẽsut for a moment, composing the words in her head. Belẽs was somewhat strange, and not even distantly related to any language she'd learned before, so it took her a bit longer than it might have. ' _Nn_ , say that again, but differently, please.'

A smile stretched at the woman's face, the white of her teeth contrasting more sharply against her skin, a soft brown tone Bella wasn't used to seeing anymore after being surrounded by the more racially homogenous magical side of Britain for as long as she had. 'My younger sister is a mastery student in the City. She mostly studies charms.'

She nodded. Right. Okay. Ẽsut had said it as a single sentence before, and part of it had folded into a weird subordinate clause she hadn't quite understood, Belẽs did weird things with verbs sometimes. While the sounds in Belẽs were kind of odd, and of course the vocabulary was entirely different, she could sort of piece together the grammar from other languages she knew — the exact sounds were different, yes, but the basic ideas behind the patterns could be found elsewhere.

Though, verbs still made her stumble half the time. They were weird. It seemed verbs _always_ required an object. Always. The subject was optional depending on context, but always an object. Even supposedly intransitive verbs, taking a variety of null objects, which was confusing. She hadn't actually heard anyone say "it is raining," but she was pretty sure the sentence would literally mean something closer to "is raining on it" — she meant, the ground, the ground is being rained on, like that. It was weird. In cases there weren't objects being spoken of for whatever reason, they'd stick in a placeholder. The most common one she heard, _anis_ , what they used repeating a word to her, she was pretty sure that marked an infinitive, it's what it felt like. And while words in European languages would _usually_ only change at the end depending on context, Belẽs seemed to do both sides. Charissa had shown her a spell in Belẽs, _isã lũgesat_ , which she was pretty sure meant "bow to me." Sort of a command, she thought, she wasn't sure. It had the feeling of wishing more than telling, but she could be wrong. If she wanted to say "bow to her," it would be _islen lũgesat_ , inflecting the object thing that kinda meant going towards something for _jale_ instead of _ãna_. But if it were just the verb in the infinitive, no specific bow to no specific person, it'd be _anis ũgesase_. And she wasn't sure why the - _se_ went to a - _t_ for a command, or why it got an _l-_ at the beginning, or if that was consistent for all command forms, or was specific for a class of verbs ending in _-se_ or organised for some other reason entirely...

It was confusing, yeah.

She was mostly used to getting confused in her own head by now. Before, she might have been slightly unnerved by how she could hear a word, know she'd absolutely never heard it before, but still know what it meant. She might have been a little unsettled by how she could understand some little inflectional thing, but not exactly how she'd learned that. By now, after using it to pick up as many languages as she had, she just tried not to think about it too hard. Picking over it would just make her more confused.

But anyway, she was attempting to talk to Ẽsut right now. 'Are you a mastery student?' She forced herself to actually get the sentence out in Belẽs, which was slightly more difficult than it had to be with Charissa right next to her talking to someone else in French.

She'd thought it was a fair guess, since Ẽsut did seem old enough to be — though it could be so hard to be sure with mages. But Ẽsut's smile tipped into something mildly teasing, and she said, 'No, I—' and then a long string of babbling she didn't understand at all, really. But she already felt something in the back of her head, something she wasn't usually conscious of, grab at the words, picking them apart, analysing structure and meaning, making guesses that weren't really guesses. Ẽsut was taking a couple years off, travelling around the world and such, before moving on with the rest of her life, she was pretty sure that was it.

Bella sighed, let her eyes fall closed, and took a second to rub at her forehead. She was getting a headache. Not as bad as when she'd absorbed Parseltongue all at once somehow, but she thought she was getting close to as much as she could get in one day here. At least without accidentally hurting herself somehow.

It was still a bit unsettling to remember how, after absorbing Parseltongue, she'd lost track of the lines between languages for a couple days. She wouldn't even know how to describe that to someone else. It'd just been unbelievably disorienting.

Charissa apparently noticed she was having trouble — not that that would be hard, she guessed. She took Bella's elbow, leaning in to mutter close to her ear. Which was very distracting, probably more distracting that it would usually have been, since she was already having brain trouble. 'Are you okay?'

After a quick glance through her fingers at the Belak around them, Bella answered in Brīþwn. Of the languages both she and Charissa spoke, it was least likely to be one anyone around them would understand. 'I'm just getting a bit of a headache.'

'Do you want to leave?'

'Yeah, I think I need to, I don't know, digest all this, or something.'

She wasn't looking, but she didn't need to to know Charissa was smirking. It was rather obvious on her voice. ' _Digest?'_

Bella shrugged. 'Hey, this omniglot shite is as new to me as it is to you.'

Charissa leaned away again — Bella blinked at the baffling blend of relief and disappointment — and was then talking to the Belak around them, in French. All politely thanking them for their time, and their help with Bella's language-learning, which the Belak all smiled at and brushed off. Bella was pretty sure there was some omniglot thing where she unconsciously exuded an aura of harmlessness and friendliness or something, there was no other explanation for how willing strangers were to help her learn. Well, if there was, she guessed it didn't work on Imuja, because he was still sitting in a corner, shooting them the occasional disgruntled look. And it might be working a little _too_ much on Ẽsut — she'd been being strangely nice since nearly the second she'd first seen Bella, said goodbye complete with a hug and a kiss on her cheek, which was weird.

She wondered if she could find a way to do this when she _wasn't_ actively learning a language from someone, just whenever she felt like it. Hmm.

And then they were walking out of the building, through the Belẽs part of the guest village. She'd been somewhat surprised, when she'd first snuck down here. She'd expected something far less permanent-looking. Gazing around at the buildings — some made of wood and some of stone, all graceful curving lines covered here and there with cloth dyed into bright colours in sharp geometric patterns — it was almost hard to remember they hadn't been here a few months ago, and would again be gone a few months from now. They were all conjured, she knew, anchored with runes to stop the transfiguration from fading, or someone from accidentally (or intentionally) dispelling them. Not every nation represented in the guest village had done that, but the tiny little Belẽs district was far from the only one.

It was also hard to remember it was January in the Highlands right now. Each of the little districts in the guest village had laid wards over themselves — always anti-transportation wards, but with a few additions that changed from place to place. Almost always, one of those wards made the air pleasantly warm and soft, a faint hint of green fragrance at the edges of it, like a morning in spring. Apparently, they could only do that kind of thing because ambient magic was so thick in the Valley, it wasn't an option everywhere, but she still thought it was pretty neat.

Of course, Belak tended to go around only half-dressed by British standards, that was another big hint it couldn't possibly be January right now. Bella noticed, with some surprise, she didn't find that as distracting as she had on the way in. She could only assume she'd been copying cultural attitudes out of the Belak's heads as well. When she thought about, she'd really need to do a bit of that to be able to speak other languages properly anyway.

Yeah. Magic was really weird sometimes.

Which didn't mean it wasn't also really great at other times. The wards making it so warm in winter were pretty neat, yes, but what people could do at the drop of a hat, without needing such preparation, was pretty great too. The instant they crossed the transportation wards, felt as a ripple of tingling across Bella's skin, Charissa's arm switched from wrapping around her elbow to around her waist instead, and then came the familiar twisting jerk of magic, an odd impression of passing through something black and unyielding, and the world came back with a snap, the two of them now standing right outside the Hogwarts gates. In the instant afterward, the soft warmth of a wandless charm against the cold again settled over her skin, insulating her before she'd hardly even felt it, and Charissa started leading her back across the grounds.

Charissa technically wasn't supposed to be apparating, she knew that. But, since the start of the year, Bella had seen her do it a few times right in front of people, and nobody seemed inclined to call her on it. She had a suspicion as to why, though she was pretty sure Charissa didn't see it, but it was possible she was reading it wrong anyway, so she'd never bothered commenting.

But she found herself watching Charissa as they silently crossed the grounds anyway. Charissa had gone in a silent mood again, her eyes turned slightly up at nothing, but in a distantly focused sort of way Bella knew meant she was thinking about something. Charissa did that a lot. In fact, she was half-convinced that was why Charissa missed so much. Too much of the time, her mind was always elsewhere, thinking about other things. There was a lot going on around her Bella noticed, but from Charissa's behaviour assumed she didn't see. And even when she did observe, she held what she already knew, or had assumed, far too apart from what she was seeing, was likely to interpret new observations through the lens of the old before considering old conclusions might be incorrect, or simply outdated. Charissa was far too quick to assume she already knew what was going on, far too slow to reconsider held beliefs. Which she guessed were both Ravenclaw things — there had to be _some_ reason Charissa wasn't in Slytherin, after all.

She didn't think Charissa had any idea how much people paid attention to her. The moment she stepped into a room, heads turned to her — perhaps only for a second or two, but it always happened. Even walking through the guest village, Bella had noticed complete strangers look up as they passed, focusing on Charissa seemingly without making any conscious choice to do so.

Bella thought she knew why. For most mages, it was entirely unconscious, it wasn't something they thought about. At some visceral level, all mages (and muggles as well, supposedly) could feel the magic around them, even when they weren't entirely aware of it. And there was something about power that was attractive. It burrowed into their heads, the seductive song of magic drawing them in, making them feel warm, making them feel safe, making them feel special, just for being in its presence. It wasn't truly a compulsion, not exactly, and it could be resisted with sufficient training, sufficient awareness. But it was the reason mages congregated to certain places, building their homes where ambient magic gathered, where they could almost feel it on the air.

And it was the reason people were drawn to sorcerers, usually without even realising it was happening. It was the reason why, almost invariably, a sorcerer would always have a coterie of select individuals around them. Exactly what one would call them depended on the sorcerer's temperament — friends, family, lovers, slaves. It almost always happened. Attracted to the warmth, attracted to the safety, attracted to the specialness, at a level so instinctive it was almost entirely unconscious, mages would find themselves drawn to a sorcerer, ever closer, until they were thoroughly ensorcelled, bound as the Earth, incapable of even considering a life that didn't somehow involve the Sun they orbited.

There was a reason, despite his many publicly-revealed faults, so many people were still blindly trusting of Dumbledore. There was a reason, despite her heritage and her unapologetically progressive politics, even the fiercest of pureblood bigots found themselves tolerating Lily. There was a reason, despite her impolitic tongue and (in)famous incorruptibility, so many opportunities had been open for Director Bones. There was a reason, despite his blatant use of questionably-legal magic and acerbic personality, so many still respected Master Snape. There was a reason, despite her youth and general asociality, so many kept one eye trained at all times on Charissa.

Oh, she wasn't a sorceress yet. The knowledge and practised skill that was generally considered necessary to be one, she was certainly far short on that. The raw magical strength, though? Not quite, she didn't think, not yet.

But nearly. Bella could feel it, sometimes. When Charissa was in the middle of a duel, maybe, when she was intensely focused on something or another, whenever she was sufficiently angry, or surprised. Tiny little tendrils reaching out, almost unnoticeable bursts of power dancing away, like brilliant solar flares washing over the people around her. Not a constant presence, as she knew it would be from any sorceress who wasn't consciously hiding it at the time. But certainly there.

She rather liked it, personally. Whenever she felt it, it always set her skin to tingling, an involuntary smile stretching over her face. It could be a little annoying when it happened whenever she was standing up, though — it tended to make her a bit weak in the knees, she could never help feeling absently embarrassed about that.

She was certain she wasn't the only person who noticed, judging by the way heads turned whenever it happened, how people jumped or sighed or glared. She was almost certain she wasn't the only person who'd put together what the signs meant. She couldn't possibly be the only person who knew what Charissa was, what she one day would be.

She was almost certain Charissa didn't notice the effect she had on people at all.

Maybe she should say something to Lily, make sure she taught Charissa how to manage this sort of thing. Letting this go on unchecked couldn't be a good idea.

No matter how warm, and safe, and special it made her feel.

'Bella?'

She jumped, started out of her distracted thoughts, looked up to find Charissa turning a slightly amused look down at her. Ah, whoops. 'Sorry, thinking. What?'

'Did you want to do anything else?'

Bella frowned at her for a moment, absently confused. 'I didn't realise I was supposed to be giving suggestions.' Ever since their advocacy had started up, usually Charissa would just tell her what they'd be doing. Duelling practice, magic practice, whatever, she'd just say. Sometimes ask what specific thing she wanted to study, but nothing so general.

And she just got more confused when Charissa shrugged, looking strangely awkward. _Strangely_ because Charissa was hardly ever uncomfortable enough to actually look it. 'It's your birthday today, isn't it? Thought I'd be nice. I should have been taking you out to pick up more languages as long as they're all here anyway, I guess, but I just thought...' And she shrugged again.

Oh. Well. It _was_ her birthday, actually. She hadn't expected anyone to make a thing of it. She'd noticed already birthdays, outside of a few certain numbers, weren't seen as quite as important of a thing as they generally were on the muggle side. It wasn't unusual for Noble Houses to throw big parties and shite, but honestly they did that for all kinds of stupid reasons, that was more about showing off to the other Houses than it really was about the anniversary of someone's birth, if that made sense. 'You don't have to do anything. Andi and Ted already took me out yesterday.' That was true, actually, she'd been surprised by even that much.

She was half-considering starting to call Andi and Ted Mum and Dad. Not because she thought it was actually appropriate — though, she'd never had anyone she called that in her entire life, so she doubted she'd even know if it were appropriate — but mostly just because she thought their reactions would be funny

Well, Ted and Dora's reactions would be funny. Andi would probably just cry or something, she did that at the weirdest moments.

But anyway, Charissa was shrugging at her again. 'It's fine if you don't want anything from me. I just thought I'd offer.'

A thought occurred to her, and Bella opened her mouth to ask, then closed it again. That...might not be the best idea. She'd thought about it a couple times. Dora had offered already, but Bella would rather Charissa do it. But there were a couple things that made it...somewhat awkward, with Charissa in particular. But, then, those same reasons where why she'd thought to ask in the first place. She kept hesitating, the thought bouncing back and forth in her head, still locked in indecision even as they passed through the doors, stepping back into the relative security of the castle.

It seemed her brain didn't really need the aid of a incomprehensible magical gift to leave her disoriented.

Finally she pushed back her reticence, gave a quick glance around the Entrance Hall to confirm no one was looking — the place was oddly empty again, actually, everyone must be just busy today. 'I actually do have a thought.'

Charissa stopped in the middle of the Hall, turned to look down at her. Considering she'd had her arm firmly wrapped around Bella's all the way from the gates, she was standing rather close.

Which was distracting, but Bella managed to shake the tangent to her thoughts off. 'Well, I'm thirteen now, you see.'

Now Charissa was the one whose mouth opened to speak, only to fall closed a moment later. The slightest of frowns brought her eyebrows down, so slightly someone who didn't know Charissa's face well could easily assume they always sat that way, her arm jerked against Bella's as though to pull away for an instant before relaxing again. Apparently, Charissa hadn't _at all_ expected that question. Which was just further evidence she wasn't really paying attention to what was going on around her, but that was fine.

It was something of a tradition, Dora had explained, for people to get an education in how to go about certain things around the time of their thirteenth birthday. Magical British society had all sorts of complex social cues for all kinds of innocuous things, so it really went without saying they had a set for, well, "courting", she guessed was the word. She felt stupid and corny saying it, but it was probably accurate. And, of course, people had to be taught all that eventually, usually by an older sibling or cousin of the same sex. And the introduction wasn't only about social stuff. Almost always, it involved a lesson in...well, kissing. A practical lesson, that is. Apparently, the, ah, practical lessons had once gone quite a bit further than that, but that almost never happened anymore.

Such a wonder the Noble Houses had had inbreeding problems for so long. Quite baffling, really.

But, anyway. Dora had offered to teach her, just yesterday. In that same offer, she'd mentioned that she'd taught Charissa already, so mostly knew what she was doing. And that had given Bella a thought. Bella would much rather do it with Charissa.

Oh, wow, she had _not_ intended the innuendo in that statement. That it was perhaps not entirely incorrect was not at all the point.

It was sort of the point that it really should have occurred to Charissa she might ask.

The long, considering stare Charissa was still giving her was really starting to make her uncomfortable. Finally, after she had no idea how long, Charissa's face tipped upward a little, her eyes closing with a sigh. Then she shrugged, turned and started pulling Bella off toward the door down to the common room. 'All right, fine.'

The thrill of excitement rising in her chest was only slightly tempered by how put out Charissa sounded. 'You don't have to if you don't—'

'No, I don't mind. I was just thinking Hermione wouldn't be happy if she knew, but oh well.'

Bella couldn't help snorting at that. Far as she could tell, Charissa had been doing quite a number of things (or people, as it were) in secret lately Hermione wouldn't be happy about. Bella knew about two — Tracey and the middle Bones girl, Susan, was it? — but she wouldn't be surprised if there were more she hadn't noticed. Not that she thought Charissa had to worry about Hermione finding out. Charissa wasn't the only person around too blindly confident in her awareness for her own good.

Ravenclaws sometimes, honestly.

A short walk later, and Charissa was giving the crest of her house's founder a low ' _Open_ ,' the door into the common room obediently parting for her. At first, some of the other Slytherins had been somewhat annoyed with Charissa's discovery any Parselmouth could get into the dorm whenever they wanted, but a glance at the unmoved faces around the room showed no one really cared anymore. If it were some other gift that allowed Charissa and Selwyn, who she'd told, to walk around like they owned the place they'd probably have objected more strongly, but apparently it being Parseltongue made it okay. Charissa and Selwyn being Ravenclaws also helped, they were generally more tolerated. It was rather handy, though — Bella didn't even know what the proper password was anymore, she always just hissed at it now. When she was coming in with other people more often than not they'd sit back to let her open it, apparently just so they could hear a single simple word in Parseltongue. Slytherins were weird.

Of course, just because they were used to Charissa coming in didn't mean she didn't get a few lingering looks. But she always got those, it was just the power thing again.

As usual, Charissa seemed not to notice the eyes on her, and simply led Bella downstairs. In a few moments, they were sitting on the sofa in her room. And Charissa was talking. Explaining there were different kinds of intimate relationships, and how to go about initiating them varied depending on whether the families of the two people involved were allies or rivals or neither. Going through the proper words, the proper gestures. Talking a bit about how, after such a relationship was started up, exactly how she was to talk to both the person and their family, what was appropriate in public, with friends, with family, and in private for the different kinds. All kinds of silly rules.

Bella wasn't really listening. She was sure she would remember all of it later. That was a thing she'd noticed about how her brain worked — actually, it'd taken until Mandie had pointed it out back when they were eight to realise it wasn't how _everyone's_ brain worked. She didn't really have to pay attention to what people were saying to remember it. She couldn't do what Hermione did or anything, recite what'd been said verbatim. She simply learned the information, the way she would know any other facts, often without even knowing where she'd heard it from. She was pretty sure it was an omniglot thing. Or, at least, it worked along the same mind magic channels the omniglot thing worked on, she had no idea if this was a thing they all did.

It was a handy trick, though. She read novels during lecture whenever she could get away with it, and still learned everything she was supposed to. And it was probably why she was top of her year in History: she was quite likely the only person in the entire castle who actually learned anything from that stupid ghost's droning.

She could have paid attention to what Charissa was saying if she really tried, she supposed, if she really focused. She was just very distracted. Charissa was sitting right next to her, and while it wasn't reaching out past her skin as it did sometimes she was still wrapped in the soothing touch of her power, and she felt almost impossibly warm, a heat springing from deep within rather than without. And, well, she was rather distracted by...

Okay, she could cop to it in her own head. She was anxious. Charissa was going to be kissing her in a few minutes here. _Charissa_. So she was anxious.

But the anxiety was quickly overwhelmed. It just couldn't survive, it was strangled out. It lasted probably until just after Charissa had brought soft fingers to her cheek, lips meeting hers all slow and gentle, as though Bella were something tiny and fragile Charissa might accidentally shatter with the slightest wrong move. Which, Bella would think later, wasn't far wrong. It'd probably lasted until Charissa had pulled only a breath away, muttered something about Bella being too tense, too rigid, she needed to relax, loosen up a bit.

And Bella had. There wasn't any other way to respond to that. True, she usually did what Charissa said without thinking too much about it anyway, but in this particular moment doing anything else would have been impossible. It was too strong, this feeling of warmth, of safety, of specialness, concentrated almost to bursting in her chest, and there was nothing she could do but give into it.

She had no idea how long later it was Charissa finally left. It couldn't have been too long — Charissa said it was time for dinner, and they should probably go up. Bella had said she...something. She wasn't entirely sure what she'd said, made some excuse. Charissa had given her a weird look, but left easily enough.

And Bella had just slumped to laying sideways on the sofa, arms wrapped loosely about the warmth inside, eyes softly closed, an indolent smile pulling at her still tingling lips.

She felt like such a silly little girl right now. But she didn't care. She was unsure how much of what she was feeling was just from Charissa's magic mucking about in her head. But she _entirely_ didn't care.

As long as the Sun she orbited was shining on her, she was flooded with light and warmth, and all was right.

That night, Bella dreamed of swirling forms of gentle orange and soothing blue light, her ears ringing with twisting, chaotic music sung from joyous, inhuman throats.

* * *

na Caoimhe (IPA: /n̪ˠə.'ki:.(ə).vʲə/ roughly "nuh **key** -vuh") — _Shortened from "Anacal na Caoimhe", which unless I'm extremely mistaken should mean something like "Caoimhe's Refuge". The name refers to Caoimhe Ní Bhláithín, a semi-historical figure and culture hero to Irish mages (exactly what she got up to may or may not come up later). The town is very old, but was mostly a tiny overlooked village under Bréifne, later Bréifne Ua Ruairc (modern day County Leitrim). In the decades after the Statute the population quickly exploded, and by now it really is the largest all-magical settlement in the Celtic Nations. By the way, Hogsmeade is still the largest all-magical settlement in Great Britain — "Great Britain" only includes England, Wales, and Scotland :P_

[British equivalent to Grindelwald] — _As has been mentioned before, exactly what Grindelwald was up to is quite different in my fics than most I've read. He was basically leading a revolt against the pureblooded aristocracy. A very bloody revolt. While Grindelwald's early stuff and what Emma is doing here aren't really that comparable, it is what some among the more skittish of the nobility will immediately think of._

Clíona — _more Gaelic, woo, roughly "_ _ **clean**_ _-uh" (IPA:_ /clʲi:.(ə).n̪ˠə/)

 _Bella's language list: "Ah, English (originally Merseyside, usually fakes Southern), Welsh (Northern), Irish, French (Norman and Standard), Dutch, Norwegian (Bergensk), Danish (_ _Insular)_ _, Punjabi (Majhi), Classical Latin, Polish (Lesser), Italian (Neapolitan), Modern Brīþwn, Scottish Gaelic, Breton, Provençal, Parseltongue, German (Low), German (High), Catalan (Central), Greek — ‹Demotic (Modern), of course, I haven't been able to find anyone who speaks Ancient› — Turkish (Standard), ⟨I'm almost done with Coptic⟩, «and I'm working on Melīx» ⟪and Tunisian (Arabic)⟫." The language names are in the languages themselves for nerdy stylistic reasons I'm not gonna explain. Some phrases rendered in English were in other languages: ‹Greek› ⟨Coptic⟩ «Melīx» ⟪Tunisian⟫. And yes, I really did think of all that, I'm a nerd. By the way,_

ɕsĦaʃçʂx (IPA: /ɕs̩.ħəʃ͡ç.ʂx̩/) — _Yes, that is Parseltongue in Parseltongue. The capital letter is where I meant to put it, the "ɕs" at the beginning is a grammatical particle. I put far too much thought into this shit..._

nXēmi (IPA: /(ə)n.'xe.mə/) — _This means "of Egypt", a colloquial shortened form for the official name, which is literally just "language of the people of Egypt". And yes, that is actually what even irl Coptic is called in itself._

Melyc̀cil (IPA: /me lyç ciɫ/, roughly "may-lee **h** -keel") — _Language of the Melīx people, who I've mentioned before. "Melīx" is actually the Brīþwn spelling, they would romanise it Melyc̀._

Ẽsut — _roughly "ay-soot"_ (IPA: /ẽ.sʊt̚/)

Jale, ãna — _Belẽs, third- and first-person pronouns respectively (IPA:_ /j̊æ.l̥e/ " _yeah-lay" and_ /ɐ̃ŋ̊ɐ/ " _ahn-ah"_ )

anis ũgesase (IPA: /ɐ.n̪ɪs | ʊ̃.ɣʰɛ.sɑ.sɜ/, roughly "ah-niss oo-geh-sah-seh" — _Bella's mostly right about what it means. Comparing this kind of thing across unrelated languages can be messy sometimes, but basically._

Imuja — _roughly ih-moo-ja_ (IPA: /ɪ.mu.j̊ɐ/)

[the middle Bones girl, Susan] — _By the way, "middle" because she has a cousin who died as an infant and a younger sister who never existed in canon, both of whom are at Hogwarts right now._

* * *

 _Yeah, late, I know. I'm trying, but my brain isn't cooperating. Also awkward, but part of the awkward **was** on purpose. Probably came out more awkward than I'd intended, with my brain being a bitch and all, but oh well._

 _Until next time,  
~Wings_


	27. Fourth Year — Quickening

_Yeah, late again. Family kept pulling me away from writing, then the first scene fought me like fucking crazy. Sorry about that._

 _And why did the first scene fight me so hard? Keep in mind I'm asexual, and it should be obvious. No idea what I'm doing lol_

 _Anyway, here we go._

* * *

 _January 28th, 1995_

* * *

It was hours later already, and Hermione's thoughts were finally settling down, conclusions now thoroughly drawn from data, and she was rather sure she could finally think about this stuff without confusion and culture shock and stubbornly irrational emotion muddying the picture. Hopefully, anyway.

She hadn't expected the wedding for that Egyptian priestess — she still couldn't pronounce the woman's name — to throw her off quite nearly this much. And she guessed, really, it hadn't. It wasn't so much the thing itself that had sent her retreating into her head for so long so much as an implication of a single detail she hadn't considered before. She'd had to go back and reevaluate so much in light of that single detail, a flawed assumption she was fixing making her realise a related assumption she'd made was also flawed, and another, and another. She'd unintentionally blinded herself, assuming certain things in magical culture were the same as the one she'd grown up in, too many things that turned out to be entirely incorrect. She thought, finally, she had the picture of it now.

The original bit of evidence that had started this cascading series of reevaluating her understanding of so many things had come as a total shock, that nobody else was even slightly surprised a second total shock. Turns out, the person that priestess had been marrying? Yeah, another woman.

She'd known, in a vague intellectual sort of way, that most magical cultures didn't have a lot of the same moral hangups Western cultures did. She'd known that was true, but she hadn't really considered the implications that seriously. Which was a bit silly of her, because by now she really should have, that was an odd degree of laziness she usually didn't allow herself. It'd occurred to her, by how nonchalant Charissa was most of the time, by certain things their friends _hadn't_ said, if that made sense, that British mages just didn't care about homosexuality the way most non-magical people did. That it was just a thing that happened, not out of the ordinary at all. She'd sort of known that was true, and even where it came from, that it was in a sense an older view of things that on the non-magical side had been slowly supplanted by various foreign influences and new innovations. She'd even heard that homosexual marriages were legal elsewhere. She'd known all that.

But she'd never really given much thought to what that _meant_.

Like, okay, take the context Axēkit and Ñaçelīc were in specifically. And no, she couldn't pronounce either of those names, no matter how many times Bella had tried to coach her through them (eleven and six respectively). They lived in Egypt, which was one of the oldest magical civilisations in existence, and had been one of the more influential that whole time. Not to say Egypt had always been politically powerful — they might dominate most of Africa and the Middle East in modern times, but more than once they'd either been conquered or simply collapsed for one reason or another — but they had certainly been a cultural centre for a very, very long time, and had historical records going back more or less consistently for roughly forty-six centuries.

Which was why it was a known fact that same-sex marriages had originally been legalised in Egypt nearly _thirty-five hundred years ago_.

Seriously! That wasn't a joke! For magical women only — it only took a rather simple blood magic trick for two women to have a child, simple enough they'd already known about it for a few hundred years by then, so the people of the time hadn't seen a reason the law shouldn't reflect something that had already been happening anyway. But _still_. That law had only been in force for about a hundred fifty years before being repealed, according to Lily, but then a couple hundred years after _that_ , the law was then changed again to allow it for everybody. Not just women, not just mages. Everybody. _Thirty-one hundred years ago_.

According to census figures that had survived, it had never been very common, true. Or at least, not very common during the old monarchy. From about fifteen hundred years ago to the Statute, mages had being doing it increasingly frequently, though whether that was reflected in "official" records varied on whether they could convince the local Islamic government to ignore it and let them do as they pleased. Which they usually did — the non-magical caliphates had almost always let regional magical cultures do whatever they wanted, in exchange for frequent magical favours. Giving mages too many reasons to be annoyed rarely ended well, a lesson the Abbasids had learned repeatedly in the Ninth Century. But, especially in these last few centuries since the Statute, it happened _all the time_. It had been happening long enough, and visibly enough, that to Egyptians it simply wasn't something worth commenting on.

Bella had even said, during that whole long conversation where Lily had been trying to explain exactly why this was completely normal to everyone else there, that she _was_ hearing some muttering here and there in Kemetic, people disapproving of Axēkit and Ñaçelīc getting married. Though their reasons had _nothing_ to do with them both being women. Ñaçelīc wasn't Egyptian, see. She was a Kushite, Egypt's Nubian-speaking southern neighbours. At least, Hermione thought they meant Kush. Bella said the Egyptians called the country _Keša_ , but some people who were clearly Ñaçelīc's relatives and such — they had significantly darker skin than the Egyptians and dressed slightly differently, it was easy to tell — called it Nōbīnçe, which she guessed could be Nubia, they were the same thing. So, the point was, she was considered by Egyptians to be a foreigner, no matter how culturally similar Egyptians and Kushites were in a lot of ways.

Apparently, she'd started as a student at that same temple, shortly after Axēkit had started teaching. So, if Hermione understood correctly, the objections people had to the two of them were because they'd started dating when Ñaçelīc was still technically Axēkit's student, along with a subtle dose of xenophobia. It had absolutely nothing to do with their genders.

Because, see, _no one cared_. Even in Britain no one cared, and while this wasn't _quite_ the most socially repressive magical nation in existence it actually wasn't far from it either. (And if that hadn't been a surprise, magical Britain was legitimately considered their equivalent of a Least Developed Country, she had _not_ expected that when she'd first learned of magic.) She'd known this as a fact, but the idea had never quite penetrated, that it simply didn't matter to anyone what anyone else got up to. If it didn't involve them, it wasn't their business. Magical Britain being comparatively repressive just meant, in this case, that people of the same sex couldn't marry. That was apparently legal not just in Egypt, but in quite nearly the entire magical world, with only a few exceptions.

Also, ah, marriages included exactly two people, and a person could only be in one marriage at a time. Apparently, those rules, which she'd really just assumed as part of her concept of marriage in general, weren't even close to universal in the magical world. Britain, yes, certain other nations, yes. But not everywhere. Not even most places. Which was very strange to think about.

But, anyway, the point was, it just wasn't something anyone cared about. Even to the point that, in most magical cultures, that someone would have a homosexual lover or two at some point over the course of their lives was _expected_. They just didn't care.

The realisation turned a few things around, that she'd known academically or only partially understood before, but now made a bit more sense. Take Charissa's uncles Sirius and Peter, as an example. She'd sort of assumed Sirius had had that falling out with his family because he was gay, but it turned out nobody actually cared about that. The problem was that he hadn't _also_ married a woman — as long as he had consented to a proper marriage, and had a few kids like a good pureblood, nobody would have cared if he was still with Peter.

Because, she understood now, marriage in magical Britain wasn't about love. It was a social institution, existing as a framework to raise children in, and pass property down through, and, mostly just among Noble Houses, arrange alliances between families. Love really had nothing to do with it. It did in most other magical nations, yes — in most cultures it wasn't the _expectation_ that people would marry for love, but it was an _option_ , if that made sense — and here increasingly often among Common Houses. But in most of magical Britain, certainly the families of practically everyone she had met so far, no.

Which had brought her to a rather odd conclusion. Her relationship with Charissa had an expiration date. She didn't know when, exactly, but mages seemed to marry rather young, so she assumed Charissa would likely be marrying some boy from one Noble House or another shortly after graduating from Hogwarts. That didn't necessarily mean they would have to stop seeing each other — extramarital partners were not at _all_ uncommon with these people, yet another thing that was practically expected. But no. This sort of thing might still be very new to her, she might still be in the process of feeling out exactly what she wanted, but she knew herself well enough to be convinced that she would _not_ be okay with just being someone's mistress or something. Not even a little bit. In fact, she rather thought she might curse anyone who suggested it. Call it a relic of the culture of her birth, call it pride or selfishness or whatever, that's simply the way she was.

And when all of this came together, all these little facts swirling in her head settling into a picture that made sense, she came to the conclusion that, well, she'd really been being quite silly.

She looked up from the book she'd been failing to read, turned to her side a bit to look at Charissa. It was late, now, and as they'd done...honestly, it would take longer to count how many times they'd done this for it to be worth it. But anyway, they were sitting in Hermione's bed, backs against the headboard, reading to themselves, which was a thing they'd done almost nightly for years now. Sometimes they'd talk instead of read, but still.

Though, looking at her did make Hermione slightly uncomfortable. Charissa tended not to wear very much when she didn't have a reason to wear a particular thing — which was just cultural stuff again, body modesty seemed a foreign concept to British mages. So Charissa was sitting practically right against her, in those solid black archaic-looking knickers mages always wore, since they apparently had never heard of elastic, and a sort of chemise thing, also black this time, that she always wore to bed. Well, wore until she was actually _in_ bed, she meant, still out where Hermione might see her, she knew Charissa took it off before going to sleep. Hermione was pretty sure that was a conscious concession to her own prudishness, Charissa did stuff like that sometimes. She was still focused on her book, though Hermione couldn't tell what book it was. It was a paperback novel of some kind, she was pretty sure of that, but there was some kind of privacy charm on it that made it impossible to make out the cover.

Which meant it was probably something smutty. Charissa had mentioned before that Dora occasionally sent her some rather risqué novels, had for a couple years now. Sometimes muggle books, but usually mage-published ones, since they'd been less sensitive about what was suitable to print for longer, so had a proportionately larger market for this sort of vulgar fiction. And she actually read them, originally just so she could say to Dora that she had, but increasingly with, she had said, a sort of horrified fascination. Apparently, some of them were _really_ bad. That Charissa had disguised the cover probably meant it was one of those, and she didn't want Hermione to know that, worried it would make her uncomfortable. Again, she did do stuff like that. She might not _understand_ , but she did try to accommodate Hermione as much as possible.

What was it Charissa had said, under the influence of whatever that had been, back on Christmas Eve? Even thinking the question brought the memory of Charissa's voice vibrating in her ears. ' _While the venerable traditions of the culture in which you were socialised bear to me an intermittently bewildering aura of the tramontane and the exotic, I endeavor to accommodate the expectations and prejudices you have become accustomed to by the lingering influence of your upbringing.'_ Yeah, she'd pretty much said it explicitly then.

And she probably wasn't entirely wrong, in this case. That her girlfriend was in her bed, right now, and not really wearing all that much at that, reading what was almost certainly erotic fiction, yeah, that was a very strange thought.

Hermione had been being so very silly, these last months. Nine months already? Had it really been nine months, since Charissa had first said she was interested? Huh. Anyway, so very silly, the things she'd gotten hung up on. Looking back on all of it now, she couldn't help feeling extremely stupid.

She was starting to think she was probably a lesbian — and yes, it really had taken her this long to seriously consider that, she was so ridiculous sometimes. But it was becoming increasingly obvious she was _definitely_ attracted to Charissa. If she weren't, she wouldn't find her being in this state of undress nearly as distracting as she did. And it wasn't just Charissa — she'd noticed wandering thoughts involving other people lately too, which had come as a bit of a shock at first, once she'd consciously realised it was happening, but, well, couldn't really help it. Always with girls, though, she hadn't noticed any with boys. Which didn't mean that would never happen ever, but it hadn't so far. And she generally thought boys were simply less interesting, but that could just be a sampling bias, she guessed, just an artifact of who she happened to be acquainted with. Not positive. Though, come to think of it, ah...

She'd felt extremely weird the first few times she...er... She, well... Oh, come on, she could say it in her own head! She'd fantasised about people she knew while masturbating! There! _Jesus..._

Anyway, yeah, usually Charissa when that happened, but not even _close_ to only Charissa. Which honestly made her feel like a bit of a pervert just acknowledging that, but there it was. Only girls, though, never boys. She'd _tried_ once, but it hadn't been going too well, and then her brain had helpfully provided her with a tangent involving Professor Vector — _yes she was weird okay she knew that already shut up shut up_ — and that had, ah, so... Yeah, seemed like a reasonable conclusion, that she was a lesbian, that was probably true.

And if she really was...so what? It was so silly how long she'd refused to even think about this, and even then how hard she'd tried to deny it for a little bit there. What did it _matter?_ If she were staying in the non-magical world it might matter, but mages obviously didn't care. Even most of her family who knew about it didn't care, which had come as a bit of a surprise. Mum just teased her about Charissa, and the most Dad had ever done was jokingly make sure she knew he still expected grandchildren eventually (yes, embarrassing, he did that). Rémy had given her a few weird looks, but he hadn't said anything, and she'd gotten the vague impression Grand-maman disapproved, but she felt that was more disapproval of Charissa specifically. It'd come out at one point that night, when some of her cousins had insisted they see the necklace Charissa had just given her, that Charissa was from an old noble family — Hermione had improvised a lie to explain it, which should hold as long as nobody went looking up the members of the House of Lords — and she had a weird feeling Grand-maman was mostly just annoyed about that. She tended not to like wealthy people. Mum's parents still didn't know, but from what she knew of them she hardly expected them to react badly. It really seemed like the only person who had ever cared was herself.

Which was _silly_.

Now that she was sitting here, going over her own thoughts honestly, she realised she'd been taking this far too seriously. The way she'd been going, it was like she'd thought there were exactly two options. One, she completely denied she was attracted to Charissa at all — which she liked to think she'd been self-aware enough to realise would have been a lie, but she was probably giving her past self too much credit — and they went back to being friends the same as before. Two, she acknowledge that was a thing that was happening, and committed to the idea of being with Charissa for the rest of her life. Which was _stupid_ , those weren't the only two options. In fact, she now knew the second one _wasn't_ an option, it wasn't even a remote possibility. Their relationship had an expiration date, but it'd been stupid to be thinking in such permanent terms at only fourteen anyway.

God, she was such an idiot sometimes.

And the first wasn't really an option either. They would probably go back to being friends eventually, yes, when that expiration date did come along. Which would without a doubt be hard at first, but she'd deal with that when it came. But it was entirely impossible to deny she really was physically attracted to Charissa. Emotionally too, in ways that were harder to put words to, but present. It would be wasted effort to try to deny it, because it was simply true. She _was_.

She meant, come on, it was so obvious. She just had to look at Charissa right now, and denying it would be completely impossible. Charissa didn't need to be as scantily dressed as she was right now for it to be undeniable, but it _certainly_ helped. With how pale she was, the contrast of her skin against her black clothes and hair was exceptionally eye-drawing. She couldn't stop her eyes from following the curve of her neck, her hair spilling down her front, the weight of the plaited strands pressing down on her top, making her slight breasts far more obvious than they usually were, so thin and tiny she was, trailing along her thigh until skin vanished under cloth, the barely noticeable band of her side and stomach visible between top and bottom. With only a couple seconds of looking, Hermione's fingers were already twitching, visions running through her mind of slipping her fingers into that little gap, burying her face into the warmth at the crook of her neck, the taste of her skin on her tongue, the nearly irresistible urge to put her her hand on her leg, see how far she could slip her fingers up until she finally lost her nerve, to hear again that slight gasp in her ear, feel that fascinating shiver of pleasure run up Charissa's spine she'd noticed only on three separate occasions so far.

No. No, it was simply undeniable.

And she was so _stupid_ for trying so long. There was really no reason to. Especially when their relationship had an expiration date. There was no reason to get all worked up with this. The smart thing to do, the reasonable thing to do, would be to just enjoy it while she could, while it lasted. To use this to figure out what she wanted. That had been part of the point when she'd first decided to try, hadn't it, to find out how she felt, what she wanted out of this kind of thing? Well, she hadn't been doing that great a job of it, had she?

Mum had explicitly said at one point that Hermione was a teenager, and experimenting was just what they did. Part of the entire reason she'd decided to try going out with Charissa in the first place was experimentation. And she'd been far too hesitant this whole time, far too stupidly neurotic, to have done a very good job of it.

Which was _silly_. So she should stop.

She slowly folded her text closed, the covers coming together softly, reached around to slip it onto the little table next to her bed.

All right. Okay, then.

A glance showed Charissa hadn't noticed yet she'd moved. That was okay. Hermione didn't mind surprising her. In fact, the thought of just _how_ she was about to surprise her sent a thrill of excitement running across her skin, something that felt oddly like a smirk pulling at her lips. Not the time to analyse that, though. Before she could second-guess herself, Hermione tipped up onto her side and slipped closer to Charissa, her head coming over her shoulder and left leg moving over hers, and slid her face in against Charissa's neck. She took just a second to absorb the soft heat around her, the almost fruity sweetness she assumed was a body wash of some kind, then gently brought her lips to skin, smooth and soft and almost hot. She smiled to herself as Charissa twitched a little, a soft gasp drawn in so close to Hermione's ear. She really did like that sound, she didn't know why.

Charissa let out that breath with a slight huff, then said in a whisper, 'What was that for?'

For a moment, Hermione said nothing. She hummed into Charissa's neck, her arm slipping under Charissa's book to wrap over her waist, her leg shifting a bit against the one she'd sort of accidentally captured. Which she was immediately distracted by — her nightdress was blocking much of it, yes, but the sensation of the smooth, cool skin of Charissa's lower leg sliding against hers brought an inexplicable, tingling warmth running through her, coming as enough of a surprise she took a second to blink at it. Once she'd gathered herself again, she muttered, 'Felt like it.'

Charissa let out a snort, and she could feel her head shaking slightly. 'Well, I'm not exactly going to start _complaining_.' The last word came out as a somewhat breathless rush, which Hermione knew was completely understandable. She'd learned from experience that it could be very difficult to speak coherently with a tongue running along one's neck.

Mwah ha ha, _vengeance_.

Hermione thought herself very strange sometimes.

She felt a bit of moving around, opened her eyes and glanced away to see Charissa was putting her book aside — somewhat awkwardly, since Hermione did have her pinned in place a little. Mm, good then. She turned back into Charissa's neck. Or at least started to, but she didn't get very far. Charissa slipped an arm under her, curling around until Hermione felt with a twitch her hand come down on her lower back, and then Charissa was twisting down and into her a bit, until she could meet Hermione's lips with her own.

Charissa's lips were on hers, soft and warm and delicious, and then she felt the slight tugging of her fingers slipping into her impossible hair, and Charissa had slid right up against her, or maybe she had done the sliding, she hadn't noticed, and her left hand had slipped a bit toward Charissa's back when she'd moved, and without hardly thinking about it Hermione slipped her fingers under her chemise, so tense with restrained motion she thought she could trace the lines of the tendons of her back, the skin smooth and hot enough it almost burned, her throat tightening with breath she had to hold because she always felt weird breathing too much with Charissa's mouth against hers, a mirroring warmth already sliding down her chest and into her stomach and wow, that had happened fast.

And then it wasn't just lips, it couldn't just be, and Hermione thought she had actually initiated it this time, a slight grunt of surprise reverberating from Charissa as she pushed back, that faint taste of honey and basil that was already growing familiar flooding her as she forced herself into Charissa's mouth. She didn't stay passive for long, overcoming her surprise after only a second, pushing back just as forcefully, her hand in her hair pulling her harder into her, hard enough Hermione missed slightly, their teeth meeting with a jarring click once, but that was fine, fine enough Hermione found herself suppressing the weirdest urge to grin like a maniac, no clue where that came from, which she _had_ to suppress because it was sort of awkward trying to snog proper while grinning like that. And then Charissa's leg Hermione had accidentally stolen earlier was moving, sliding up between hers, hindered slightly by her nightdress before simply pushing it gradually up her thighs.

She felt herself frowning, her already closed eyes tightening further. Not because of what Charissa was doing, directly. But the skin of her leg sliding between hers was doing weird things to her, she couldn't explain exactly what. She was going oddly wavery, almost shaking a little, enough she doubted she'd be able to stand right now if she had to. Not that she thought she would particularly have to any time soon. An odd tension was building in her back and her chest, and as Charissa's leg passed her knee, skin smooth and almost cold from exposure to the air sliding against the insides of her lower thighs, Hermione felt a pressure at the back of her throat she tried to force back as hard as she could because she just _knew_ that was an embarrassing noise of some kind trying to free itself and she abruptly realised they hadn't thought to put a silencing up and Morag was _right over there_ —

Nope, nope, bad. Hermione jerked her face away from Charissa's, breaking the kiss to give herself extra concentration to direct to controlling herself. She managed to hold back most of it! And that thought sounded far too much like whining, at least it was just in her own head. She let out a breath with a long shudder, the _something_ that'd been trying to escape coming out only as a high whimper instead. Still more than she'd wanted to betray, but whoops. 'Ah, shite,' Charissa hissed, her breath sending Hermione's hair to twitching. 'I forgot, sorry.' Charissa's hand slipped out from where it'd settled at the base of her neck, and a moment later Hermione felt the familiar tingle of a paling falling into place. She focused on the magic floating around for just a moment to confirm, yes, that was a silencing. A rather powerful one at that, but this _was_ Charissa.

She was somewhat surprised Charissa had instantly known that's what the problem was. Or even there there was a problem in the first place, she guessed, and that she wasn't just breaking for breath. She wouldn't have thought she'd have figured that out so quickly.

But then she changed her mind a moment later. Once Charissa had her wand away, she turned back to Hermione again, pulled back enough she could look her in the eye. The fingers of her wand hand coming back to softly trail along Hermione's cheek, Charissa said, her voice soft and low, 'You okay?'

So, Charissa _hadn't_ known that was the problem. She'd known it was _a_ potential problem, but not necessarily the real one. They'd never directly discussed it, but it had to have been clear to Charissa that Hermione hadn't been entirely comfortable with...well, pretty much everything about all this. Not at first. She'd been slowly adapting, but it'd been so slow, her stupid silly thoughts being stupid and silly. With the number of times Hermione had abruptly stopped her when it'd been going too far for her, Charissa would have to be a complete idiot not to have noticed, and while Charissa might be a lot of things an idiot wasn't one of them. Charissa was probably thinking it was possible Hermione was doing it again, and would be asking her to stop.

And this would probably sound slightly crazy but, _god_ , it just made her want her more. She _knew_ Charissa didn't have any of the same hang-ups she did, she _knew_ Charissa was hardly the most patient person in the world, she _knew_ her stupid, silly dithering these last months must have been driving Charissa _completely and totally insane_. And she was willing to keep waiting, as long as Hermione needed to be comfortable, without a breath of complaint, concerned enough she was actually taking this entirely unnecessary moment to _stop and ask_.

It probably didn't make the most sense, that it affected her the way it did. But Hermione couldn't help the eager grin tugging at her lips, was helpless to stop the almost dizzying giddiness washing over her. She didn't answer — she had no idea what she would have said, and wasn't even confident she was capable of speech at the moment. So she kissed her instead.

And then everything was lips and teeth and tongues, and she thought she wasn't breathing enough but she completely didn't care, there were things she would rather be doing. She kept her hand at Charissa's waist, the flexing and shifting and turning in the muscles of her back far too fascinating, the occasional shiver running with her breath setting her to smiling. She thought her bones had turned entirely to jelly at some point, probably around the time Charissa's leg had made it up about as far as it could go, every slight shift in the pressure against her sending sparks of hot lightning along her nerves, her heart pounding in her throat and her fingers twitching, and she was far too hot and bright and eagerly tense she could hardly keep track of what was even going on anymore.

And then Charissa was pushing her over onto her back, she hadn't noticed it happening until it already had, shifting around so she was straddling her hips instead, her weight spread low over her, and that was fine, that just meant Hermione could bring her other hand to her back too, shifting higher up her spine, absently counting vertebrae as she went, very much aware that she was pushing up Charissa's chemise quite a bit here. Charissa broke away slightly, let out a long, high sigh, falling forward a little so her elbows were just above the edges of Hermione's shoulders, her neck curling in to bring her mouth to Hermione's ear. While she took the opportunity to catch up on her breathing a bit — she was more than slightly light-headed, but that could be for any number of reasons, really — Charissa spoke straight into her ear in a hissing whisper, turning her stolen breaths to shudders. 'You can get rid of that, you know.'

It took a second for Hermione to realise she was talking about her chemise thing. And then another second for her to decide, what the hell, it was hardly like she'd never seen Charissa topless before anyway. Never in this sort of situation, true. But, still. All right, then. She shifted her hands over to Charissa's sides, run her fingers along her skin all the way up, pulling cloth along at her wrists, Charissa leaning away only long enough to slip the thing over her head, toss it over her shoulder, before attacking her again.

Without even really thinking about it, Hermione had wrapped her arms around her back, her left trailing high along bare skin all the way to the bottom of her opposite shoulder, her right hand low, fingers following the dip where her spine met her hips, measuring each shift and turn. She thought about, well, shifting around to her front, but...

This might be weird, but Hermione thought she honestly found Charissa's back, her lower back especially, more interesting than her, ah, chest. Was that weird? She thought that might be weird.

She thought she just liked feeling her move, she guessed, and she was moving quite a bit now. Sliding against her, seeming to fade up and back with her whispering breath, each movement felt through her right hand, tensing and relaxing, rising and falling, a deep, tactile shiver running through her the instant after Hermione caught her lip with her teeth for a second, Charissa falling against her neck again with a high gasp. It was just _fascinating_ , she couldn't say why.

And then Charissa stopped, going still for the first time in a while, breaths high and deep. One of Charissa's hands slipped away from her hair, slid down her side, Hermione losing track of it at some point, only to feel slight flutters of touch over her stomach, knuckles randomly brushing at her, she thought, unintentionally. Then Charissa pulled up, only slightly, only enough for her face to be suspended above Hermione's, lips so close she was half-convinced she could feel them light as breath against hers, eyes turned an almost unnaturally bright green, looking for anything like deep emeralds illuminated from behind, steadily meeting her own. Charissa didn't say anything, just stared hard at her, the slightest traces of a questioning feel about her Hermione couldn't quite read.

Charissa's fingers gently closed about her right wrist, slowly pulling Hermione's hand away from her back. Around her side, turning over her stomach. Hermione's fingertips sliding down against her skin unbroken, inch by inch, interrupted just as silken cloth ghosted against the back of her hand with short, sparse hairs. Just as Charissa stopped moving her hand, still staring down at her, eyes unblinking. She—

 _Oh_.

Erm...

Hermione had the odd sense of standing on a precipice, a sudden flare of unreasoning terror urging her to turn and flee, tense, slick, pounding heat within and hard green above begging her to jump. She hesitated for a long second, thoughts she couldn't put words to flickering before her eyes in a jumbled rush.

But only for a second.

She knew what she was doing well enough, the familiar map mirrored in her head, fingers instantly jumping down to the right spot, flesh hot and smooth and wet against her skin, and Charissa's eyes above her slid closed, a long sigh passing against her lips, catching noticeably at her throat at the end.

A part of her, far to the back of her head, really couldn't believe she was doing this, this was happening. Mostly, she was far too distracted to pay attention to the thought.

And far and away too much to be distracted _by_.

Charissa moving against her, matching her hand in a seemingly unconscious rhythm, almost unnoticeably subtle tremors reaching her fingers in fits and starts, each one making Hermione smile for reasons she really couldn't explain.

Charissa sometimes kissing her, but mostly not, apparently too distracted herself, arms wrapped under her head and around her neck, increasingly harsh breath hot against her neck.

Left hand running along Charissa's back, following the rising and falling of her breath, the rolling twist curving her spine again and again, Hermione's fingernails drawing a breathless hiss from Charissa she was half-certain was Parseltongue, and she was pretty sure she hadn't _meant_ to do that, the thought inexplicably smug.

Charissa's thin, stuttering breath, as though she were trying desperately to control herself, gradually giving way to longer gasps, then broken by a high whimper, her breath coming faster as her arms tightened around her, seeming almost to shake against her, then the air was split, shockingly sudden, with a low moan sounding deep from her chest, released right against Hermione's ear, shockingly loud.

Just hearing it set Hermione shivering, her blood pounding hot with sympathetic excitement, an odd thrill of giddiness tingling through her head, another grin she couldn't explain pulling at her lips, her toes clenching involuntarily at the sheets of her bed. That was the most beautiful sound she'd ever heard. Was that weird? She thought that might be weird.

Ephemeral tendrils of light and fire, perceived but not quite seen, brushing at the bed, the curtains around them, tickling at her arms and legs, power expanded bright and breathing. But that one Hermione thought she might be imagining.

Charissa growing hard and tense, arms and legs tightening around her until she almost hurt, breath thick and broken against her neck, and Hermione was familiar enough from herself to feel it coming before it did, was already smiling to herself without really knowing why, feeling almost absurdly pleased with herself. She was so weird.

But she didn't have long to wonder about that, because she was quickly distracted by something else. As she felt it happening, which was really a quite fascinating thought, part of her studiously counting the familiar involuntary muscle contractions throbbing against her fingers, Charissa... Well, she didn't know what word to use for that. Not a moan, exactly, or a gasp, or a scream, or anything she had a good word for. High and thick and hot and hard, shaking and breaking under pulsing shivers Hermione felt working up her spine, clearly unconscious, every single bit of it completely outside of her control, which was a rather exceptional thought where Charissa was concerned, since Hermione had long felt she was virtually _always_ completely self-possessed, buried under almost pathological self-mastery, it was just...

No. _That_ was the most beautiful thing she'd ever heard. Which she still thought might be a bit weird.

But it was all _entirely_ fascinating.

Hermione waited, staring up at the ceiling above her bed with an absent smile on her face, as Charissa's breath gradually slowed, broken here and there with short high moans drawn from little shivers under Hermione's fingers. But then...well, she wasn't sure how to say this. Usually, after... Ah, Hermione would feel a bit tired, usually. But, with energy seemingly sprung from nowhere, Charissa was moving again, straightening enough to reach her lips, a light flurry of kisses Hermione was too surprised to really respond to.

And by the time she shook off her confusion and actually _could_ respond, Charissa was already moving on. Tipping over her chin, laying light kisses one after another down her neck, her throat, her legs shifting over Hermione's as she passed her collarbones. And then Charissa was sliding down, her face and hands sliding over Hermione's chest and stomach making her shudder, and—

 _Oh_.

Erm...

That flood of terror suddenly reappeared, clenching hard at her chest and throat, making her almost dizzy, even as Charissa's hands slid up the outside of both her thighs, and Hermione jerked away, reflexively shoving down the hem of her nightdress, which had at some point migrated practically up to her waist. Hermione took a long breath, shuddering from...well, she wasn't sure exactly, but shuddering, anyway. She stared over at where Charissa sat, a short distance away, staring right back.

Which was very distracting. Charissa was, well, not exactly dressed right now. There was nothing but unbroken skin from her throat to her waist, which... And even then, she hadn't redone the ties on those silly knickers she always wore, so they were sort of...half hanging off her...and Hermione could... And she was all flushed, her face and chest and thighs more pink and red, sweat glistening visibly along...

Hermione swallowed, brought an unsteady hand up to her face, half to rub at her forehead and half just to cover her eyes. Not helping.

'I think I...' Her voice came out breathless and shaky, which she guessed wasn't so weird. Her chest almost hurt she was having such trouble breathing all of a sudden. Well, not so much all of a sudden, when she thought about it. How long had they been in here now? She might have been able to guess from the gradual decay of the silencing, but Charissa's charms had a strange tendency to stick longer than they should these days. 'I think I need to...'

When Charissa didn't respond for a few moments, and Hermione hadn't even heard her move at all, she hesitantly pulled her hand away to look at her again. And Charissa was still staring at her, virtually expressionless as she nearly always was, slightly narrowed eyes steady on her. After another few seconds of silently staring at her, Charissa finally spoke. 'No.'

Hermione frowned. 'Excuse me?'

'No.'

Er...

Eyes not moving a degree off hers, Charissa reached for her own wrist with her opposite hand, started pulling at something Hermione couldn't see. A few moments later, the invisibility charm on the wand holster broke, the bands of leather falling to the bed. It was soon joined by the one on Charissa's other wrist. She gathered them both up, then, still looking straight at Hermione, dropped them both off the edge of the bed.

What was...

'If you really want to stop me...' Charissa slunk a little closer, her hand falling to Hermione's right to hold herself over her legs, her other hand reaching out of Hermione's peripheral vision to her left. Then her hand came back, and Charissa shifted a bit, taking Hermione's hand with both of hers, wrapping her fingers around—

Her wand?

In the grip of both her hands, Charissa turned Hermione's hand, now gripping her own wand, moving it around until the tip was touching the edge of her own forehead. ' _Stupeat_.' The flat look was replaced with a slight smile as Charissa said, 'I can't resist that one.' And Charissa let go, already moving, her head bowing away.

Despite herself, Hermione almost felt like giggling. What the hell was _that?_ Charissa was _so weird_.

And Hermione hesitated, watching as Charissa slid back, shivering as her hands ran up her legs, letting out an embarrassing little squeak when Charissa abruptly yanked at halfway up her thighs, pulling Hermione down flat on her back from where she'd sat up half against the headboard. And she felt her breath catching harder in her throat as her hands slid further up, her lips at Hermione's knee, softly trailing light kisses, slowly up the inside of her thigh as Hermione watched, and her wand was pointed at Charissa without hardly realising she was doing it, the tip quivering indecisively in the air.

She—

Just—

When Charissa's fingers reached her hips, slipping under cloth and starting to gently pull, Hermione bit her lip so hard she almost thought she tasted blood.

Ah, to hell with it! She was being _so stupid!_

Hermione quick renewed the silencing over her bed, just in case, and put her wand aside so forcefully she nearly threw it. Charissa glanced up at her, and for a second she couldn't help feeling faintly annoyed at the smirk touching her lips.

But only for a second.

* * *

 _February 18th, 1995_

* * *

' _And representing Hogwarts Academy, Charissa Potter and Neville Longbottom!'_

Drawing an easy grin onto his face, Neville stepped out of the tent and into the circle, the cheers of the Tournament crowd crashing on him like an almost physical pressure. The size of the audience hadn't diminished at all since their last bout — if anything, there were even _more_ people packed into the stands rising in tiers far over his head, waving and fluttering like multicolour clover in a breeze. Not too surprising, he guessed. Neville was somewhat surprised he and Charissa had made it into the quarterfinals, but not so much by the size of the crowd. The ICW had made this whole year sort of a big deal, after all.

When he'd gotten to their starting place in the overly large duelling circle — hard, packed dirt for doubles, not the rune-encrusted stone floor he was more used to — standing a few metres away from a pair of Aquitanian students, he spun a few degrees on his heel. Burying the impulse to sarcastically exaggerate the move, he gave a quick bow toward the section of stands he knew the tournament organisers were sitting in, all graceful and pretty as Gran had given him absolutely no choice but learn how to do, following that up with a cheerful wave toward the student side of the stands.

How insistently Gran had forced into his head something as minor as _bowing properly_ had annoyed him at the time, but with how it now tended to make girls blush and stare at him he didn't mind anymore. True of a lot of things Gran had had taught him, actually.

He noticed Charissa at his side hadn't acknowledged the enthusiasm of their audience any more than to tilt her head at them a little. No sense of showmanship, his cousin.

While the announcer — couldn't remember his name at the moment — rattled off reminding everyone about rules and such they certainly still remembered from the match immediately before theirs, Neville took a moment to examine their opponents. He'd watched this Aquitanian team in a few of their earlier matches, and Luna had correctly guessed they'd make it into the final rounds. Or maybe she hadn't guessed? It could be hard to tell with Luna. They were a boy and a girl as well, a couple years older than themselves, named Blanxart and Cæciné respectively.

Blanxart was a little taller than Neville, pale and blond, with the slender runner's sort of build hinted at through the loose cloth of trousers and tunic. More obvious than it would usually be in winter — he apparently hadn't thought it necessary to find clothes that actually had sleeves, silly ponce. He might look non-threatening, comparatively soft about the face and smiling all nice back at him, but Neville knew he was quick as anything, throwing out curses at a pace only topped by Luna, had drawn out rather impressive lightning magic in one of their duels with hardly even a breath to gather himself. He doubted he was as powerful as Charissa, of course — or probably even Neville, if he were to be honest — but there was no doubt the bloke knew what he was doing.

He wasn't sure what to think of Cæciné. He'd been mildly surprised to recognise the name from one of his lessons, that of one of the more influential noble families in Aquitania — they had dissolved their peerage early last century, so they weren't technically nobility anymore, but they had been, anyway. Which also meant she was a cousin to Charissa and Luna, through both their mothers, though he had no idea which degree. She did look sort of a little bit like Luna, with similar white-blonde hair and gently rounded face, even wearing a familiar absent smile, but he could be imagining it. Strangely enough, despite the fact they were going to be duelling in a second here, Cæciné was still in a pretty white dress, looking far too nice and delicate for the occasion. Her shoes, a matching white clean enough there just _had_ to be a dirt-repelling enchantment of some kind worked into them, even had _heels_. Strangest thing. Shouldn't underestimate her either, though. He'd noticed she was more subtle than Blanxart, throwing out precisely as many carefully-considered hexes as needed, no more and no less, with perfect timing and flawless aim.

With a few tricks up her sleeve he wasn't even sure he understood — in one of the matches he'd watched, she'd casually shattered someone's shield charm with what had looked to be a _stinging jinx_. No idea how that was supposed to work. Had she just massively overpowered it or something? Whatever.

They didn't have long to wait, three of them smiling passively over at each other, the constant noise of the crowd battering their heads. Before too long the announcer finished up his stupid little speech, and the air shook with a low ringing, marking the start of the match.

Before the ringing had even faded, Charissa had darted forward, soft flames already wreathing her wand hand, and Neville had cast a featherlight charm on himself, ignoring the tingling running across his skin and queasiness rising in his stomach, and leapt backward, drifting over the dirt for a few metres before touching softly down again. He dispelled the charm at a quick flick, with a short breath gathered a surge of power flooding up into his chest all soft and light, and cast it out over most of the circle, transfiguring dozens and dozens of little bits of dirt here and there all at once into the seeds of a very particular plant — the familiar European school of magic technically considered that alchemy, but to other cultures it was just a slightly more complex form of transfiguration. While Charissa continued distracting the Aquitanians, their side of the circle filled with bangs and roars and flashes of light and fire, Neville again reached for his magic, drawing it up onto his tongue, one of the songs his mother had taught him long ago already spilling from his lips.

People generally turned their noses up at phytomancy — the looks he got from other boys whenever he said he could make plants grow by singing at them! It could be dead useful, though. It was hard to duel proper with a crapload of vines covering the ground, tenaciously wrapping at your ankles. With long experimentation, he'd even managed to learn how to sing plants immune to fire, a skill that'd been all but necessary with Charissa of all people being the person he usually practised against. With Charissa pulling their opponents away for only the few moments he needed to pull it off, they'd won doubles in fifteen seconds flat because of it.

And Sally-Anne had quite nearly swooned when he'd sung a handful of white primrose into existence that one time. So, useful for multiple things, really.

He'd hardly even gotten the first few syllables off, green on his tongue and light tingling across his skin, when he broke off, suddenly quite distracted. Cæciné had gotten away from Charissa somehow, was standing only a couple feet away from him. The world around him seemed to stop, turning blurry and indistinct, unimportant. He let the song fall away, his magic breaking and fading, dumbly staring at her. Her smooth, perfect skin almost seemed to glow, a soft, gentle smile tugging at his chest, deep blue eyes glittering with warmth and light and life.

For one, dangerous moment it was impossible to see anything else, impossible to move any more than to gape, blink at her like an idiot. She was just _so..._

Neville wasn't completely hopeless. He could feel it, the tendrils of subtle magic plucking at his mind. After that first moment he reflexively jerked away, Cæciné's exaggerated beauty and his head both clearing somewhat, frantically tried to clear his mind of the compulsion, but not really getting very far, caught too thoroughly unprepared, the sweet perfume of her thoughts already buried deep within before he could react.

Still smiling brightly at him, Cæciné lifted her wand, pointed right for his chest. His own wand hand twitched, but he knew he wouldn't get it raised in time for a deflection, was too dazed to properly cast a shield.

Well. He just knew he was going to be embarrassed about this later.

Just as magic started to bloom on the tip of Cæciné's wand, there was motion at Neville's side. Warm and fluttering soft, almost tickling, flames erupted to life on his skin, wreathing him head to toe. The fire wasn't just on him, but _in_ him, magic hot and purifying, incinerating the compulsion on him like so much paper, its sudden removal leaving Neville gasping, teetering a little in place. Then it spread outward, flickering blue and white flame rising as a miniature cyclone four metres high, the rotation of the vortex of light violent enough to buffet him with constant gusts of hot wind, the eye at the centre only just large enough to fit the both of them.

Because Charissa had showed up just in time to rescue him, now turning on him with a visibly exasperated look. He'd be returning it with a sheepish smile if he weren't too busy feeling relieved at the moment. But he did have enough presence of mind to defend himself. 'She's a legilimens. Mind magic compulsion. Didn't even feel it coming.'

Charissa's face instantly twisted into a scowl. And for good reason.

The uninformed tended to think that wanded legilimency charm was all there was to the direct perception and manipulation of minds — a few basic compulsions, things like the confunding charm as well, but basically. That a legilimens was simply someone who was skilled with that charm. Much like popular conceptions of many other sorts of magic, that was totally wrong, anyone who'd picked up even the most basic of primers on mind magic knew that.

See, technically, the wanded legilimency charm wasn't even mind magic at all. Mind magic, as could be guessed from the name, was not done with energy channelled from wherever it was their power came from, focused through wands or runes or incantations or whatever else. Proper mind magic was reaching out with the power of one's thoughts, the energy naturally generated by any functioning brain bent to the person's will — for that reason, that it wasn't technically magic at all, muggles could theoretically do it as easily as mages, though Neville had never heard of anyone who'd learned. The infamous charm had been invented long ago to imitate the effects of true mind magic, but technically wasn't.

While it was a skill anyone could theoretically learn, it was also, much like Neville's phytomancy, a talent someone could just naturally have, usually presenting in the mid-to-late teens — almost never later, but sometimes much earlier, and those kids were apparently the creepiest little things to ever live. These people, as easy as anyone else would reach with the fingers of their hand, could reach fingers of their will into the minds of others. Either passively, knowing the thoughts of people around them with disturbing absoluteness, or aggressively, replacing thoughts and emotions here and there with ones they preferred. Neville had heard stories of such individuals completely remaking the people around them, tearing their minds apart and putting them back together however they pleased. He'd also heard stories, usually of younger ones, who were unable to separate which thoughts were their own or drifting in from outside, slowly driving them insane.

These people were usually called legilimens, which...he thought was supposed to be Latin? Supposed to be from, what, _legulus mentium_? How exactly did they get "legilimens" from that? Worst Latin he'd ever heard. Didn't matter, just what they were called.

While doing direct or permanent harm to a person through mind magic was against tournament rules, this sort of temporary and comparatively harmless sort of compulsion was perfectly fine. And, as he understood mind magic, the compulsion Cæciné had used on him was an extremely difficult one — base impulses and instincts were the hardest parts of a mind to manipulate — which meant she was almost certainly a natural legilimens, and not simply a student of mind magic.

Which also meant they were screwed. He'd learned a bit of basic occlumency, yes, but there was no way he'd be able to keep out a natural legilimens like Cæciné for very long. Hence Charissa's scowl. A slight snarl on her voice, she said, 'She didn't use it in any of her previous matches.'

Neville shrugged. 'Maybe she did. How could we know for sure, from the stands?' He vaguely remembered one of the Gaunts, forget which, had fought (and lost against) Cæciné back in the singles tournament, but they hadn't mentioned her using it then.

Maybe Cæciné was whipping it out against them just because she wasn't sure she and Blanxart could beat them without it. The thought left him feeling oddly flattered.

Looking rather disgusted with the situation, Charissa groaned, shaking her head. 'Fine. I'll handle her, you keep him off me. Careful — he's fast.'

He considered saying something sarcastic, but this wasn't really the time. So he nodded instead.

With a single twitch of Charissa's wand, the magic holding the whirlwind of light and fire together abruptly collapsed, tendrils of glowing blue and white carried rushing out from them on a final gust of fiery wind. Even before the flames had vanished entirely, Neville turned toward where Blanxart was standing a short distance away, hunched against the wind with an arm blocking his eyes, and drew up another rush of power, his wand rising. ' _Steðinn detti!'_

Blanxart did get a shield up in time. But then, Neville had expected him to. The gust of wind Neville had summoned, flattened into a nearly tangible wave of pressure, crashed against his glimmering orange shield charm, the force carried through the charm and into him, whipping Blanxart off his feet and flipping backward. With a negligent wave, Neville cast another featherlight charm, only powerful enough to make him somewhat lighter on his feet, and dashed after Blanxart, the charred and lumpy ground jolting by in fits and starts under him.

Blanxart reoriented himself in the air to come down on his feet, the motion looking smooth and easy enough it was unnatural, he had to have cast some kind of spell to pull it off. Before he'd even straightened all the way, he swiped his wand horizontally, a long, thin spellglow of a pale orange springing across the air toward Neville. After an instant, he recognised it, and was impressed despite himself. It looked sort of like an overpowered cutting charm, how it was all a stretched out band of light like that, but Neville knew that, if this thing actually hit him, it would act as a stunning charm instead. And it was white magic as well, so a standard shield charm wouldn't block it. This specific spell would even go through most physical substances — though it expended more energy doing so, so it couldn't penetrate very far — meaning a conjured barrier wouldn't do much good either. Neville had seen people casually whip out magic like this before, but it was usually Mum, Lily, other Aurors. He couldn't help feeling rather impressed.

Not that it mattered. Drawing up a sense of furious resistance, filling himself with the idea that he absolutely _refused_ to be brought down by such a thing, Neville gave an irritated flick of his wand, muttered, ' _Ba-niḡinab.'_ He felt the tendril of black magic lash out, turn the white stunning charm aside with an angry crack. And then Neville was on Blanxart, falling immediately with a quick flood of a bludgeoning hex, two stunners, a cutting curse.

Blanxart didn't get hit with any of them, of course, deflecting the first, leaning away from the second, deflecting the third, and blocking the last with an unfamiliar shield charm a bright purple. Then he was striking back with a rain of hexes and curses, most foreign charms Neville couldn't identify by sight, some seemingly harmless but others powerful enough the air crackled behind them. Neville would never be able to remember exactly what happened in this part of the duel, his mind too consumed with casting, and deflecting, and casting, and dodging, and casting, and shielding, spells flying back and forth quickly enough there wasn't time to think about it, each defense, each attack, each counter chosen intuitively, instinctively.

He would watch a recording of it later, not that that would tell him all that much either. The both of them were skipping around too fast, magical eyes blinded by intermittent flashes of charm after charm after charm. But sometimes duels were just like that.

When the fight ended, it ended very abruptly.

Neville was in mid-step when he suddenly stumbled, his right leg numb and sluggish. He only had a moment to be confused — that charm had come from _behind_ him! — before Blanxart had his wand right in his face, smirking as a stunning charm gathered on the tip.

He only had the slightest of warnings, intangible fingers of will and power curling around and tightening on him, before Neville was abruptly yanked backward, hard enough his head jerked, something in his neck exploding with hot, dull pain. He'd been flying backward, head first and face to the sky, for less than a second before a wave of fire filled his entire field of vision, passing the opposite direction right in front of him. He recognised it instantly — _flamma impulsāns_ , a fire elemental bludgeoning charm, basically. A rather large example of it, seemed like, but he gathered Charissa was angry.

Still being drawn onward by what he guessed was a summoning charm, he titled his head up a little, facing the direction that had been behind him a second ago, but now above him. Oh, wow, yeah, Charissa did not look pleased, face twisted in an almost inhuman grimace of fury. At a guess, that numbing charm on his foot had been from Cæciné. Rather impressive, considering she'd managed to aim that thing _through_ whatever Charissa had been dropping on her. Yeah, he could guess Charissa wouldn't be happy with—

Wait. _Wait_ a second. Had Charissa cast that fire spell and summoned him _at the same time?_ How did she— He finally picked out how her off hand was half extended toward him, on its way pulling back to herself, hand half open, in the middle of clenching into a fist.

Huh. It seemed Charissa had spontaneously figured out wandless magic. Not that he could fault her on the timing, mind, very convenient.

He was about three-quarters of the way to Charissa now — time did seem to be moving oddly slowly, he noticed that happened sometimes when he was intensely focused enough — when he noticed Cæciné had gotten her balance back from whatever Charissa had done to buy enough time to summon Neville and, possibly, knock out Blanxart. She was already raising her wand to Charissa's back, she wouldn't have enough time to respond. Which meant they would almost certainly lose, since Neville didn't think he could deal with someone who was both a legilimens and talented duellist on his own.

Maybe he could just...

He again reached deep within himself, seeking not power but feeling, letting rise those natural protective instincts he usually tamped down around her — very proud, Charissa, it annoyed her — fuelled by every gram of his love for his cousin — practically a second sister, really, with how close Mum and Lily were she'd always been around — every tiny bit of his annoyance with Cæciné — smug bitch pulling a trick like that, so cheap and underhanded — an absolute refusal to bend, to lose, he _would not allow it_ , gathering up the magic and feeling and will, and threw his wand arm up, casting it all out into the air—

He didn't say any incantation at all. There wasn't one for what he was doing — at least, not one that he knew of. His power, his will, his desire to protect his cousin, came together to invent a mostly instinctive bit of white magic, a wide wave of pale yellow light that sprung out ahead of him. It flooded over Charissa, seemingly not affecting her at all, and continued on to Cæciné behind her.

Neville didn't actually get to see what it did. Before it even hit her, his back met the ground, and he was sliding and rolling across the dirt, after a few turns coming to a stop at Charissa's feet. He heard a low growl from Charissa as he scrambled, trying to get back up, damn numbing charm on his leg tripping him before he managed to dispel it, but the red light of a standard stunning charm took a kneeling Cæciné even as he found her. Right. Good.

Or, not so good. He turned to look at Charissa right next to him, a frown immediately falling across his face. She'd fallen to her knees herself, barely held up with one shaky hand against the ground in front of her, her breath coming hard and fast and thin. Surprising she'd even managed to hit Cæciné with that stunning charm, really. But it wasn't only that, what she was physically doing. Even as he watched, blue-purple sparks appeared in floods, racing across her skin before disappearing, so quick and so dim he was only half-convinced he was even seeing them in the first place. And just standing next to her was...

Well. He knew Charissa would be a sorceress one day, he'd known that practically his whole life. Of course, he would almost certainly be one himself, so he'd never really given much thought to it. He could already feel it with Charissa, sometimes, brief pulses of power rising from within, washing over her surroundings before vanishing again. He thought she was rather young for that, but Mum had said the same had started happening with Lily as early as third year, so maybe it was just an Evans thing.

This, though, was on a different level entirely. Standing next to Charissa right now was like standing next to a furnace, a locus of intense power, radiating hot magic thick enough his skin was prickling with it, almost painfully so. And not just magic, but a very clear sense of panic and terror, breaking against his mind like waves against a shore, and it only took a second for Neville to realise it was _Charissa's_ panic and terror — she had no more idea what was happening to her than he did.

He turned, glaring up toward where he knew the judges were sitting. Why hadn't they called the match yet?

A groan split the air, and he turned to face it, instinctively raising his wand. Oh, that was why: Blanxart was still conscious. His clothes were a bit scorched in a few places, and he seemed very unsteady, legs shaking uselessly as he tried to push himself to his feet. Neville snapped a stunning charm at him, and the bloke barely even blinked before it took him, and he again collapsed to the ground.

He nodded when the match was immediately called for them, the stands raising with cheers sounding at least half-shocked by the sudden upset. There we go.

* * *

Neville was starting to get worried.

It had been, what, a half an hour now, since the two of them had _barely_ managed to beat that annoying pair from Bѐubastons. They'd been shuffled off to the Healers' right away, and they were still there.

Neville wasn't sure exactly what the Healers had said to Charissa — they'd been separated at first. Neville had had a few healing charms flung at him by an oddly cheerful Scandinavian Healer, the ache in his neck from Charissa's _wandless summoning charm_ instantly vanishing. Then he'd had a potion shoved at him, the Healer giving him a bright admonition in heavily-accented French about trying not to get too beat up in his next match before flouncing off. He'd stared the direction the man had disappeared into for a moment before shaking himself and leaving to find Charissa. Bloody continental mages...

Unlike Neville, who'd just been brought into a simple exam room and quickly dismissed again, Charissa had been brought somewhere that almost seemed a proper hospital room, with a bed and a dresser and little side tables and everything. Since he hadn't been expecting that, it'd taken him some minutes to find her, by the time he did the Healers already gone and replaced with visitors. When he'd shown up, Mum, Dad, Lily, and Perry had already been here, along with Gwyn and Jasper, and Susan, and Luna, and Ginny, and Dora and Bella, and Tracey and Daphne, and Alex and Hesper, along with both of their parents, and Lady Malfoy, for some reason. He also noticed Kelsey, Lily Moon, and Sorcha Selwyn huddled in a corner, no idea what they were doing here, didn't even know Charissa knew them — well, Selwyn, sure, she was a Ravenclaw prefect, but not the other two. So, the room was already a bit packed, was what he was saying.

And that was even before James — Lily had taken one look at him before quietly slipping into a corner — Linden, Remus, Sirius and Peter, and a couple Fawleys trailed in a few seconds behind him. It was ridiculous.

Oh, and Hermione of course, but he rather thought that should be a given. She hadn't moved from her perch by Charissa's bed. Actually, he didn't think she'd even released Charissa's left hand since Neville had gotten here, watching Charissa with a very clear look of worry. He wouldn't be surprised if her lip started bleeding. Which was a little odd, but understandable all the same.

Though, he had noticed there'd been something a bit different between them the last couple weeks. This was just a guess — he didn't really care to know enough to ask — but he was assuming they'd finally started having sex. Which, well. _Good_. Maybe Hermione would figure out how to actually relax for two seconds. That girl was far too high-strung every second of every day, no way that was healthy. Not holding his breath, but he could hope.

He guessed he would say something similar about Kelsey, but whatever it was she had going on with Moon and Selwyn was too weird, he preferred not to think about it. Kind of avoiding even looking in their direction, honestly.

But, it'd been at least a half an hour or so now, and it didn't seem Charissa was getting any better. She was still drawing high, thin breaths through clenched teeth, her face a clear grimace of pain, eyes squeezed shut as she tried desperately to control herself. Because, far as he understood, that was what was going on here. Nearly with every breath she took, another wave of magic pulsed out from her, washing against everyone and everything in the room in a constant, dizzying flood. And he could tell it wasn't pleasant. Just since he'd arrived, she'd taken this one potion, intended to heal _magical burns on internal tissues_ — _five times_. Her body simply wasn't ready to channel this much magic at once, but it seemed her magic wasn't giving her much choice in the matter. In a breathless hiss through her teeth, Charissa had explained it was like there was this door in her head she'd accidentally bashed open with that wandless summoning, and magic kept flooding into her mind through it — Luna had straightened slightly when she'd described it as music — and she couldn't get it to stay closed. Each time she tried it just slammed open again. And it _fucking burned_.

No, this did not look fun at all. The only thing stopping him from worrying too much was how Mum and Lily seemed more resigned than concerned. If anyone in the room could be said to be experts in channelling more magic than their bodies could really handle, it'd be them. But he couldn't help worrying a little.

Charissa still wasn't any better when they got another guest, a young man all dressed up in ICW colours — tournament official, then. He took a quick glance around the room, looking somewhat surprised at how crowded it was, before turning to Charissa and speaking in French, with what sounded like a light Slavic accent. 'I don't suppose you'll be fit for your next match, then.'

Oh. Right. That was still going on.

Charissa let out a long sigh, cut off by a groan as she jerked, another flood of uncontrolled magic washing over the room. 'No, doesn't look like it.'

The man nodded. 'You are permitted to select someone to take your place, with Mister Longbottom.'

At that, Tracey perked up a little. 'I'll go.' Not unreasonable, he guessed. He and Charissa did know each other best, which was why they'd been paired for doubles in the first place, but he and Tracey did together well enough. Tracey and Luna had also gotten rotten luck in the first rotation, pairing against some of the better teams over and over — between them, he and Charissa, and the Gaunts, they'd been eliminated first — so some eagerness was not unexpected.

Too bad. 'No.' Practically the whole room turned to him all at once, and he shrugged. 'I'm not going.' Charissa was his partner for doubles. How many matches had they made it through, to get all the way into the quarterfinals? A couple dozen at least, he thought. If she _couldn't_ go on, then he _wouldn't_ go on, he was staying right here. She was his partner, and it wouldn't be right to fight without her.

The ICW bloke made what looked like an understanding nod at that, while Charissa and Tracey shot him matching exasperated looks; Selwyn muttered something, 'bloody Hufflepuffs' the only part he caught. Charissa closed her eyes again, let out a long sigh. 'Can I replace both?'

'Only if they've both already participated, and been eliminated. Miss Black—' Bella met his nod with a pout. '—since she didn't participate in this section at all, would not be allowed.'

Charissa nodded. 'Gaunt.'

From where they'd been standing with their parents — and Lily, who'd seemingly been cornered and having her ear talked off by their mother — Alex and Hesper sketched a simultaneous pair of florid bows. Hesper said, voice all low and dramatic, 'As you wish it, milady—'

And Alex finished with, '—it shall be done.'

'We're going to lose of course, but...'

They both shrugged. A moment later they were gone, their parents, Tracey, and Daphne trailing them out.

'You didn't have to do that, Nev.'

Charissa's eyes were still squeezed shut, her breath still coming high and harsh, the hand Hermione hadn't claimed clenching the linens tightly enough Neville was distantly surprised they hadn't torn yet. Those weird blue-purple sparks he could see-but-not-see were still intermittently springing to life across her skin, wave after wave of undifferentiated power still crashing in uncontrolled surges around the room, each pulse met with flinches and twitches from Charissa, throat visibly tight with swallowed screams, even Hermione wincing as Charissa squeezed her hand harder than was probably comfortable.

He really sort of thought he did. He would have felt guilty after, if he went to go fight (and probably lose) in the semifinal without her. It just wouldn't have been right.

But he doubted she'd understand that — honestly, even he didn't — so he just shook his head, and said nothing.

* * *

Axēkit — _This name did show up two chapters ago, but as a reminder, it can be pronounced "uh-_ _ **hey**_ _-kit". That's not actually correct (IPA:_ /ʕxe.kʰɪt/ _, that first syllable is impossible), but close enough._

Ñaçelīc — _Another made up name, intended to be in a modern Meroitic language, related to Nubian. (I know the classification of Meroitic is contested, I'm assuming it's Nilo–Saharan.) Pronounced something like "nyah-heh-leek" (IPA:_ /ɲa˦.çɛ˧˥.ɺi:c˥˩/ _). Those are tone markers, by the way._

Keši (IPA: /kʰɛ.ʃə/, roughly " **keh** -shuh") — _Yes, supposed to be Coptic for the homeland of the Nubian-speakers to their south. Put a few sound changes on Middle Egyptian k3š to get it. (k3š =_ /ku.ʁuʃ/ _{vowels assumed from Akkadian "kūsi"} -›_ /ke.ʕɪʃ/ _-›_ /kʰe(ʕ).ʃɪ/ _-›_ /kʰɛ.ʃə/ _)_

Nōbīnçe — _Pronounced roughly like "Noh-been-heh" (IPA:_ /no:˩˧.bi:n˥˧.çɛ˨/ _), an informal term for the magical nation just to the south of Egypt, including parts of southern Egypt, a little over half of Sudan (along the east), a bit out of western Eritrea, some of northeast South Sudan, and much of northwest Ethiopia. Basically, the Nile river valley south of Aswan, with a bit of the Blue and White Nile as well, and much of the lands between and around them. Name adapted from the word for Nubians in the largest Nubian language irl (Nòòbíí)._

Least Developed Country — _A United Nations term for the lowest tier of socioeconomic development. Hermione isn't quite using the term correctly, but she's just in her thoughts by herself, so meh._

[Which meant she was a cousin to both Luna and Charissa, though he had no idea which degree.] — _Seventh and sixth, respectively. At that distance, they're really no more related than random strangers; Neville really is imagining her looking vaguely similar to Luna._

Phytomancy — _Magic involving the creation and manipulation of plants. Not generally taught, but sometimes presents as an inborn talent, familial traditions passing parent to child. Just smashed together "phyto-" and "-mancy", Greek roots literally meaning "plant-divination"._

confunding — _Can't remember if this is standard HP fandom use or not, so thought I'd point out this word is spelled incorrectly on purpose._

legulus mentium — _Literally meaning something like "collector of thoughts". Kinda handy_ legō _has such an appropriate additional meaning._

steðinn detti — _Hey, look at that, Neville's casting in Old Norse. Something like "_ _ **steh**_ _-thin_ _ **deht**_ _-tih", meaning "anvil, fall". Definitely not an expert in Germanic languages, despite English being one, I'm guessing so hard, no guarantees on this being right._

Ba-niḡinab (IPA: ? /pæ̞.niŋ.gi.næ̞p/ ?) — _Roughly "pah-ning-gee-nap", meant to mean something like "turn it aside", from the verb niḡin ("halt, turn away") and a few affixes. But, again, not an expert on Sumerian, could be completely wrong._

Bѐubastons — _Just a reminder, that's Beauxbatons in Occitan._

Kelsey — _No, she hasn't been mentioned before. She's a Prewett, the daughter of Gideon Prewett, which makes her first cousin to all those Weasleys, and second cousin to Neville and Susan, hence Neville not using a last name. I actually put together a family tree of all this shit, it has literally 175 people on it (though some are placeholders and some I think are repeats because incest), I am completely insane._

* * *

 _Yeah, so that was interesting to write. Hope it wasn't too painful? Bluh._

 _And I'm aware the end was awkward, but I'm already a week late, and I didn't want to end up even more ridiculously late, and I'm so done with this chapter by now, so... Double bluh._

 _Until next time,  
~Wings_


	28. Fourth Year — Song of the Ancients

_Couple days late, I know. I've been sick all week. I'm lucky I got it done as quickly as I did._

 _Fair warning, some things in this chapter are...weird. Some of the bigger AU stuff is starting to come up. So, ah. This is happening._

 _Let's do this._

* * *

 _February 25th, 1995_

* * *

'Lily! Hey, _Lily!_ '

Lily blinked at the sound of her name called in an unfamiliar voice, just barely audible over the noise of the crowd around her, mixed languages in a dizzying, nonsensical cacophony. She stopped her walk toward the gates of Hogwarts, looked over to her right, searching around dozens and dozens of strangers for someone she recognised.

Only to jump when a girl she didn't recognise at all appeared before her, grabbed her arm and started dragging her toward the gates. ' _There_ you are! I've been looking everywhere for you, you know.'

Lily leaned away from the girl, giving her what she was sure was a very odd look. She let her keep dragging her though — she seemed to be making for the school grounds anyway, and the girl didn't seem too threatening. She could always stun her later if she changed her mind. 'What are—?'

In a whisper Lily could barely hear over the noise of the Tournament crowd, the girl said, 'Just play along for a minute, please?'

It was then Lily caught the harried, desperate sort of look about the girl, and she connected a few dots. Right, the girl was using her to escape an uncomfortable situation of some kind — she knew her own reputation well enough to know it would take a certain amount of bravery for whoever had been bothering her to intrude. Lily was fine with that. With some of the ridiculous conversations she'd been dragged into lately she could certainly sympathise.

Lily still had no clue who she was though. She did seem oddly familiar, enough Lily was certain they'd met before, but she couldn't remember where. She wasn't quite as young as Lily had first guessed, late teens or early twenties maybe, she couldn't tell for sure — how short and slender she was had implied younger until Lily had gotten a better look. The quality of her shimmering orange and green robes implied she was from a Noble House, her sharply contrasting dirty-blonde hair and the angular cut of her nose and the slope of her forehead implied from one of the originally Continental families, the comparatively utilitarian cut of her robes — sleeves close against her arms, wrapped loosely otherwise, hem high enough there were a few inches between cloth and ground — implied she did some sort of work with her hands. Enchanting, maybe, that would be Lily's guess. There was something very familiar about the soft curve of her lips, the watery, shifting glint in her eyes, but she couldn't remember where from. It was really starting to bother her.

It was only when Lily noticed the very faint resemblance to Luna about the mouth and eyes that she figured it out. 'Ah, Miss Ollivander, right?'

Tipping a crooked smile up at her, Ollivander said, 'Right in one, Dame Black.' Lily somehow managed to hold back the urge to roll her eyes — she'd been trying to get people to go back to calling her Evans, but it simply wasn't working. Silly British mages revered their Ancient Houses too much. 'Well, it's technically Mistress Ollivander now. You can call me Zoë, though, I don't mind.'

'With how you were just running around in public shouting my first name, I guess you better not.' Lily didn't actually care — while she had learned the complex politeness rules of this silly culture perfectly fine, that didn't mean she felt the same way about it natives did — but that didn't mean she couldn't tease the girl for it a little.

Zoë at least had the grace to look sheepish.

A few moments later, jostled by the crowd surrounding them every couple seconds, they forced their way through the bottleneck at the gates, a heavy tingling racing over Lily's skin as they stepped onto school grounds. Just the Hogwarts wards, she recognised the feeling easily enough. Once they were through, Lily turned to Zoë a little. 'All right, you've escaped. You can let go now.'

The girl's hands snapped away from her arm, sharp and sudden as though she'd been burned. Lily thought she might have noticed the faintest traces of a blush on Zoë's cheeks, but she could be imagining that. 'Sorry. I, er, just saw you walking by and took the opportunity.'

'It's fine.' If Lily had really minded, she would have just hexed her or something. 'You were stuck in an uncomfortable conversation, I'm guessing.'

A grimace crossing Zoë's face, she said, 'Something like that. I don't know why they keep coming to me. Far as I can tell, my uncle has been very firm telling everyone who asks that I'm not available at the moment.'

Lily put the dots together in about two seconds. 'Ah, marriage offers.' An almost comically glum expression on her face, Zoë just nodded. 'At a guess, they might be thinking your uncle is speaking for himself more than anything in claiming you're not interested in marrying yet, or that at least they could convince you with the right offer.'

'I don't know what's so hard to understand about—' Zoë cut off as she nearly ran right into a large wooden food cart slowly trundling down the path, ducking around the opposite side and curving back around. 'I mean, what part of "she's focusing on her apprenticeship, go away" is so hard to understand?'

'Didn't you just say a minute ago your apprenticeship is done?'

Zoë blinked at her for a moment, then, ' _Oh_ , no, no. I finished the licensure for an _enchanting_ mastery, but I still got a bit left before Grandfather thinks I'm good enough with wands specifically.'

That was impressive enough on its own, she thought. People didn't generally finish their first mastery until, oh, twenty-six or so, and Zoë had to be a few years younger than that. Of course, Lily and Sev had both already finished two by the time they reached twenty-six, but they were hardly representative. 'Ah, well, people can be oddly tenacious about this sort of thing. I can't even remember all the people I've had trying to talk me into marrying their sons lately.'

'Elissa Tugwood?'

Lily stared at her for a second, then shrugged. All right, then. 'Yeah, got her. She's got...two sons, right?'

'I think it's two. I only ever met one of them, and if he wasn't an annoying little prick.' Well, she wasn't wrong; Lily hadn't been particularly impressed with either of the Tugwood boys she'd met. 'Augusta Longbottom?'

'Isn't Neville a little young yet to be— Oh, you mean for Laurie? No, Augusta knows me well enough to know I'd never agree. Besides, I think it would be a little odd for me to marry someone I once put in a time-out when he was nine for crashing his broom into a tree.'

Zoë smirked up at her. 'You say odd. Some men are into that sort of thing.'

Without any conscious decision on her part, Lily's face twisted into a grimace of disgust. 'How about _no_ , thank you.'

And she just giggled, high bouncing laughter extending for some seconds. Lily shook her head through it, started scanning the nearing stands set up about the lake for familiar faces — silly girl, honestly. 'But, seriously, the apprenticeship thing is mostly a convenient excuse. It's going to be so much more awkward when I don't have that excuse anymore. The sort of people I'd be interested in aren't exactly going to come calling, you know.'

Lily frowned to herself, turned her head again to glance at Zoë. She couldn't put words to exactly what it was, but there'd been something odd on her tone. One look at her face made it far more obvious. Zoë wasn't even looking her direction anymore, slightly away and up, a peculiarly uncomfortable look about her, a reappearance of that slight blush from before.

Subtle, little girl. But not subtle enough. Honestly, after decades of experience with Sev, Zoë would have to try a _lot_ harder than that to keep anything from her.

Somehow, Lily managed to hold back the overpowering urge to let out a weary sigh. It could be worse, she guessed. She had no particular reason to run into this silly girl regularly, so she at least would be easy to avoid. But she was really starting to wish people around her could think about anything else. She understood a sorceress her age without romantic or marital attachments of any kind was an exceptional rarity, but _come on_.

It seemed that invitation to study in Egypt couldn't have possibly come at a better time. Maybe people would settle down after a few months without her around. Unlikely, she knew, but she could hope.

'Well,' Lily said once she'd pulled herself from her thoughts again, 'good luck with that.' And she sped up a bit, slipping through a clump of people to head straight for what she decided was the student section of the stands, where she'd probably find Charissa and Perry. A few seconds later, she glanced around quick to find Zoë hadn't tried to follow her — must have taken the hint.

Now, if only _anyone else_ could, she'd be set.

She nearly groaned when she was waylaid almost immediately by a warmly smiling Teri Gaunt. She didn't need to guess what he wanted to talk about — it'd been months now, and he _still_ hadn't given up trying to talk her into marrying Cionaodh. No luck today, apparently.

* * *

Charissa jumped when someone heavily slumped into the seat behind her, their leg bumping against her shoulder. But she eased an instant later — she'd recognise that feeling anywhere. Turning to look at her mother over her shoulder, shouting a bit to cut over the noise of the crowd, she asked, 'Something wrong?'

'Nothing important.' She was somewhat relieved to notice Mum looked better. Far less exhausted, anyway, the constant drawn look much reduced. And she didn't seem at all hungover this time, so there was that. Of course, Mum was leaving for Kemet later tonight, Charissa knew, so she'd been gradually cutting back her responsibilities with the DLE for a while now, it wasn't surprising she'd seem less tired. She did look faintly annoyed, but other than that she looked well. Good. Her explanation about the annoyed part was delayed, though, when Perry slipped into the seat next to her, folded into her side, both arms slinking around her waist. A warm smile at her lips, Mum wrapped an arm around him, planted a quick kiss on the top of his head. And then she was talking to Charissa again.

But she didn't hear a word. She was too distracted by her own thoughts. It was something she'd been wondering about intermittently for some time now, only growing harder and harder to ignore the last few months. Since this annoying reacclimation had started last weekend, when she'd had far too much magic running through her head for a few hours there, she'd had greater than usual difficulty controlling herself, so that just made ignoring it even harder. But watching Mum and Perry do that had set the topic again springing to life in her head — it was simply impossible not to think about it when she was slapped in the face with it like this.

She was starting to... She didn't know.

What Perry had done there, well. She didn't understand why he did things like that. If it were just Perry, just a few people, she could pass it off and not worry about it, but it wasn't. It seemed to be everyone else, everyone who wasn't her. And she didn't understand it, at all. She didn't get why people...

She understood sex, okay. It felt good, there was a point to it, that made sense. She didn't understand what everyone else got out of some of the other things she saw them doing all the time. Like this right here. She didn't get hugging. She could remember a few times, in all likelihood few enough she could count them on her fingers, when she'd been particularly upset for one reason or another, and Mum hugging her had calmed her down a bit. She thought she could maybe understand that a little, sort of reinforcing her presence, that she was there, Charissa was fine, it would be okay. She got that. If that was the only reason people hugged, she thought she might be able to understand it. But it very clearly wasn't. Or at least she didn't think so? It wasn't like she could look into people's heads and see what they were thinking, but she was pretty sure.

To be completely honest, in any other situation being hugged mostly just made her uncomfortable. She let Mum and Perry do it anyway, though they knew her well enough not to very often, and Hermione of course, but just because she understood they got something they needed out of it, even if she didn't understand what that was, didn't mean she necessarily liked doing it. She tolerated it. She couldn't even really explain why it made her so uncomfortable, it just did. Since it did make her uncomfortable, and since she really couldn't say she got anything out of it, she didn't think she'd ever hugged anyone of her own volition before. Excluding times she was expected to for whatever reason, of course, that didn't count.

Oh, well, maybe she had hugged Hermione a couple times, but considering what she'd been thinking about at the time, she didn't think that should count either. She understood sex.

And she was pretty sure this was just her. She'd noticed other people doing it all the time. To be honest, it'd probably be quicker to list the people she knew well she _hadn't_ seen hug someone at some point. And not just hugging either. There was the hand-holding thing Hermione still insisted on doing — Charissa had mostly gotten used to the idea that her own hand no longer solely belonged to her, but she still had no idea why Hermione had started doing that in the first place. It wasn't just Hermione either, she'd noticed a few other couples doing it.

And the way Perry was just staying there, snuggling up to Mum like that, Charissa didn't think she'd be comfortable doing that with _anyone_. Well, Hermione, she was the exception, and even then mostly just when she was sleepy. She'd surprised herself a bit, back on the Solstice, when she'd leaned up against and quite nearly fallen asleep on Hermione after exhausting herself dancing with Neville. She'd just done it, and she still didn't understand why. And when they slept together, which they'd done a few times now — this last week, Charissa had spent more nights in Hermione's bed than her own — Hermione absolutely insisted on cuddling, which... Well, if she'd had the opportunity to consider how she thought she'd react beforehand, she'd have anticipated she would have hated that, but... She'd been very confused, that first night in France, she still didn't understand why that was different. Hermione was comfortable, she guessed, she didn't know. Just Hermione, though, no one else could get away with it. She'd actually been forced to shove Susan off of her once — and, no, Susan had _not_ been happy about that, that had been a confusing argument.

It wasn't just touching stuff either. If it was just touching, she could maybe write it off as a single little quirk of hers, no big deal. But it wasn't. It was other stuff too, though the touching was the easiest to quantify, most of the rest too vague. She didn't get why other people cared about some of the things they cared about, why they felt about things the way they did sometimes. There were a lot of conversations Charissa really didn't understand what was happening at all. She'd learned the patterns a long time ago, so she could play her role in the conversation just fine, say all the things people expected her to say like checking boxes down a list, but that didn't mean she understood it. It was just pattern recognition, so well-learned it was automatic, she hardly even realised she was doing it half the time. She'd learned a long time ago telling people what she really thought often went very badly, seemingly at random, she could rarely figure out why. It was always better to pretend to be a normal person, or if she couldn't decide what a normal person would say step back and say nothing, let someone else meet their normal person conversational needs. Talking to Hermione these days could be precarious, especially when they were alone, and she assumed this was the same thing, she had no idea what she was saying wrong most of the time.

If she were to summarise all of it, all the touching and the reactions and the conversations, she would say it seemed everyone else through these behaviours was fulfilling some emotional need, or needs plural, she simply didn't think she had. And she didn't have it or them so thoroughly she didn't even know what it or they _were_.

To summarise it all even further, she was really starting to wonder if there wasn't something seriously wrong with her.

Not that, in all honesty, she thought she would particularly mind if there were. If anything, knowing for sure would make things simpler. It was the uncertainty and confusion, mostly, that bothered her. If she could say for certain she was just different, that there were some things about other people she was never going to understand, well, she thought that would be easier.

Maybe she should ask Mum sometime. She always seemed to understand Charissa better than she did herself.

'Charissa?'

She jumped, shook her head to herself. 'Sorry. Thinking.'

Mum gave her a weird look at that, but didn't question it, quickly distracted answering some question from Jas.

Charissa turned back forward, rubbing at her face with her free hand, trying not to be too annoyed. The deafening, overwhelming chatter of the crowd pressing in around her wasn't at all helping. She couldn't even say exactly why she'd found herself fighting a wave of anger and frustration clawing at her chest, it'd just appeared out of nowhere. Well, okay, maybe not _nowhere_ — she'd been constantly dealing with little things that annoyed her for pretty much her entire life — but the sudden strength of the feeling was what didn't make sense. She could usually manage it.

She decided to blame this stupid reacclimation, that was it. She realised she'd been doing that a lot lately, but she didn't particularly care.

Hermione shifted against her, arms tightening around hers. 'Are you okay?' she said, low enough Charissa could barely hear it over the noise.

A glance to the side showed Hermione, with a faint expression of concern, looking down at her. Which just made the annoyance worse — she really wished she were taller sometimes. 'It's nothing, I'm fine.'

By the doubtful, exasperated look in her eyes, Hermione didn't believe that even a little. But, like Mum, she didn't say anything about it. No, instead she just kissed her. Sharp and quick and shy as she always did when other people were around, but still.

Charissa just stared at her for a second — Hermione used to avoid anything like this in public, it was still very new — before letting her lips tilt into a smirk. 'Feeling much better now, though.' Smiling seemingly despite herself, Hermione let out a little huff, shaking her head a little.

And the weird part? She even sort of did. As she turned back forward she couldn't completely hide her smirk, one that felt almost...smug? Was that the right word? She wasn't sure.

That she didn't understand other people at all did not mean she perfectly understood herself either.

Charissa hadn't been entirely sure what to expect from the Second Task of this Tournament. She had to admit she'd been pleasantly surprised by the First Task — just being within sight of a dragon had been inexplicably invigorating, she'd have to go visit the Reserve sometime. But she had no idea what to think about this. The stands had been set up on the shores of the Lake. Really? Were the Champions supposed to be doing something underwater or something? She could feel a complicated enchantment on the air, the only part she could pick out an image projection, probably designed to show to the audience whatever was happening. That seemed a good guess, but she couldn't imagine how interesting this could possibly be. There wasn't really that much down there. So, this Task would probably be a disappointment.

She also thought Delacour might be at a significant disadvantage this time — wasn't there something about carīdwð and water? She couldn't remember for sure. But since Fleur had an unfair power advantage over the other Champions the rest of the time, Charissa thought that might only be appropriate.

With the secrecy around these things, she'd had little idea beforehand how the Second Task would go. Afterward, she was certain the organisers hadn't either.

The thing was just starting up. The five Champions were arrayed out on the shore of the Lake, with various expressions of eagerness or trepidation on their faces — by the sullen look on Delacour's she could just barely make out from here, Charissa was pretty sure she was right about carīdwð and water. The Headmaster was again welcoming the crowd with his usual cheerful rambling, and then he was introducing the Task, blah blah blah. Charissa noticed the Champions were muttering to each other while waiting, apparently no more interested in what Dumbledore had to say than—

Delacour jerked out of line with a shout, flinching away from whatever Troelsen had just said to her, even from here very clearly horrified. Dumbledore's speech slowed for a moment, hesitating, and then cut off completely when Delacour vanished in a flash of red-orange fire.

While most of the crowd descended into confused muttering, Charissa thought she heard more agitated shouting over to her left. She leaned around the people next to her, trying to spot the source of the greater noise in the stands, but she couldn't see it.

And then, after only a few seconds had passed, Delacour reappeared. But she wasn't alone. Appearing in their own tongues of flame, standing close at her shoulders, were what was obviously a few more carīdwð. Charissa thought "obviously" because they looked practically identical. All six were dressed differently, and there was a faint impression about them that they were somewhat older than Delacour, but they otherwise had the same bright silvery hair, the same flawless faces and distracting figures. But, then, Charissa hadn't much expected to be able to tell them apart — there was no reason to think their camouflage magic would make them look like consistently distinct people, that was really more effort than necessary.

And they didn't appear where Delacour had left, either. Instead, the seven of them flashed into existence right in front of Dumbledore and the other judges. And, judging by body language and the chaotic noise caught by the amplifying and translation enchantment Dumbledore had been using, all seven started screaming at them at once.

Over mixed confusion and outrage from the crowd, Hermione said, 'What's going on?'

Charissa just shrugged; she had no better idea than Hermione did.

Surrounded by visibly infuriated carīdwð screaming their heads off at him, Dumbledore did what anyone would probably do — Charissa could pick out from here his hand inching for his wand. The very moment he'd gotten the thing out of his sleeve, there were a couple dozen more flashes of fire all around him, and suddenly the judge's pavilion was absolutely surrounded by carīdwð, thick enough and angry enough the air was bending with it, a strong heat shimmer blurring out all fine details, enough Charissa couldn't see what was going on anymore. She could feel the magic from here, though, stinging warmth clawing at her face and her arms. And she did see Aurors and police swarm the pavilion, closing in the carīdwð even as they closed in the Tournament officials.

'Oh, no,' Mum said, her voice carried again on that whispering charm of hers. 'Oh, no, oh, no, _please_ nobody curse nobody...'

Yeah, er. Charissa didn't have the experience Mum did, and she still had no idea what was going on, but even she could see that could go _very_ bad _very_ quickly.

For a few moments, Charissa couldn't tell anything new. Whatever was going on at the pavilion was still blocked by that shimmering, whatever was being said, though broadcast over the enchantment, was too confused and overlapping to pick apart, and even then would likely be drowned out by the increasingly noisy shouts of outrage from the stands around her. She was watching so hard for anything new she noticed immediately when a figure slipped out of the crowd at the pavilion, stalking off toward the Lake shore. It took her a moment though to realise it was Delacour again — the only way she could really tell her apart was the far briefer than usual clothes she was wearing today, more appropriate for sloshing around in the Lake.

Like most everyone else, she jumped when a voice cut over the noise, amplified so loud it stung in her ears and vibrated in her bones. ' _Charissa Potter!'_

For a moment, while the British section of the stands temporarily quieted somewhat in response to the familiar name, Charissa just stared at Delacour. The caryd was standing right at the shore of the lake. Somehow, staring right at Charissa far away in the stands. Sharply gesturing for her to come.

Er. What?

'Charissa?' said Hermione next to her, voice heavy with confusion and worry. She start saying, 'What—' but didn't have time to finish the sentence.

Mum behind her took in a short, sharp breath. That was the only warning Charissa had.

As Delacour, tiny in the distance, simply shifted one foot back a little, Charissa felt grasping tendrils of hot, implacable magic appear around her. Before she could react — before _Mum_ could even react — the magic had wrapped around her chest, just under her arms, and plucked her out of her seat, her arm painfully wrenched out of Hermione's grasp. She felt another flash of familiar magic reaching up behind her but Mum was too slow, and Charissa was yanked forward, hair and clothes fluttering and stomach churning as the world tilted dizzyingly around her. The stands passing below, the moody grey skies above, winter-browned grass cleared of snow for the event, a colourful blur she thought might be the medical tent, then clouds again, too fast and too confused to really make much sense. After a few seconds she rapidly slowed again, caught in another charm, blood heavy in her face and in her chest, and she came down thankfully much softer than she'd thought she might, her upper back lightly hitting the dirt first. And, since she'd landed face-up, she could immediately tell she was right at Delacour's feet.

 _Wow_ , that had been unpleasant. And to think, she'd done quite nearly the same thing to Neville just last week, and he hadn't even said anything about it. Quite sure she wouldn't have brushed it off as easily as he had, had their positions been reversed.

Glaring at the stone-faced caryd above her, Charissa started pushing herself to her feet. 'What the fuck was—'

She hadn't even gotten to her feet when there was another flash of familiar magic — Charissa recognised the peculiar mix of warmness and coldness in a smooth wave as her mother casting shadow magic, and Mum stepped out of nothingness just a couple steps away from Delacour, wand already drawn and fixed on her. But before Mum could do anything, Charissa's vision was filled with red and orange, a warm breeze gently nipping at her head to toe, along with an odd jerking sensation rather similar to that moment just after losing her balance on a patch of ice, and when the fire vanished an instant later Charissa was—

...

Charissa was _on the lake_. Still on one knee, since she hadn't made it all the way up yet, the water surface inexplicably impermeable enough to hold her weight. It was rather disorienting, actually, looking down at the water she _knew_ shouldn't be able to hold her, but somehow was. A quick glance around showed a circle within a couple metres of Delacour had somehow been made unnaturally placid, smoother and steadier than the Lake ever was even on the calmest of days, the ever-present waves breaking at the border racing up a few inches as though pressed against an invisible wall before falling again. She could feel a tingle of some sort of magic, of course, holding the water in place and preventing them from falling, but she couldn't tell what kind. It was interesting.

A glance further out showed they had to be at least a half a mile away from the shore. Which answered where they were, but not so much what Delacour was doing, and why the fuck she'd felt it necessary to drag Charissa along.

She'd just gotten to her feet, opening her mouth to ask Delacour exactly that, when there was another wash of shadow magic, and Mum again appeared out of nowhere, standing half in front of her, wand inches from Delacour's chest. 'What the _hell_ do you think you're doing?' Oh, look, she was annoyed enough her old muggle accent was showing. Huh, that almost never happened.

For a couple seconds, Delacour said nothing, just glared back at Mum with narrowed, impossibly bright orange-yellow eyes. In tight, snarled French, Delacour said, 'I'm borrowing her. I'll bring her back.'

Charissa frowned. 'Do I get a say in—'

'No.'

Oh, well, _of course_ not, that would be far too reasonable.

Mum didn't seem any more pleased than she was, her rising shoulders seeming almost painfully tense. 'What for?'

'I need her to save my bloodsister.'

Charissa was surprised enough she forgot to be annoyed at her own abduction for a moment. See, she knew what that was, they'd covered it talking about carīdwð in class — or at least she assumed, but she thought that the "bloodsister" concept they'd talked about and the " _sœurette au sang"_ thing Delacour had just said were the same thing wasn't an unreasonable assumption. Carīdwð reproduction only required two people, presumably, but for cultural reasons there were always more adults than that in a household, and they were usually all acknowledged as the parents of all of the children. While no one was certain exactly how carīdwð reproduction worked — it was generally assumed they were avian-style egg layers, not placental mammals, but it was one of those things carīdwð refused to confirm or deny — it was known carīdwð virtually always knew the identity of one of their biological parents for sure. It wasn't entirely comparable, since carīdwð didn't have distinct sexes like humans did, but the analogy was that carīdwð usually knew who their mother was, but almost never knew which of the other adults in the family was their father. They did consider all of them their parents all the same, but there was a distinct word in their language for that one biological parent they knew for sure.

The same way, all the children in the household considered each other siblings — their own custom considered it incest even if siblings didn't share _either_ biological parent. But, there was a distinct word for a sibling who shared that one obvious biological parent, and reading between the lines of the very little carīdwð let humans know suggested there was some cultural stuff attached to it too. The most obvious evidence, in countries where the carīdwð humoured the government enough to properly register their apprenticeships a disproportionate number of them were bloodsisters. Humans didn't have the whole picture, but it _was_ obvious there was something to it.

Apparently, Delacour had felt abducting Charissa necessary to save her baby sister's life.

Oh! Oh. _Now_ she understood why those carīdwð had been so angry at the Tournament organisers. That first group of carīdwð Delacour had reappeared with had probably been her parents — slightly odd thing to say about a group of six people, but okay — and the rest who'd appeared afterward were probably more from her clan. There were very few things about carīdwð culture humanity understood very well, but one thing they were absolutely certain of was that carīdwð were very protective of their children. Irrationally, even violently protective. If Delacour's sister really was in danger—

Oh, _fuck_. If something actually happened to the younger Delacour, well. There was no doubt at all the entirety of the Çyr would be searching for someone to blame, and would not easily forgive. Since the Tournament was an ICW thing, it was possible they'd just blame the whole ICW. Since the Çyr were one of the more influential clans among the carīdwð, it was entirely possible the rest of the carīdwð would follow them. And, with how humanocentric the ICW tended to be, she doubted they'd take them seriously. Which would just anger them further. And if it made them angry enough, there were a whole list of non-human races who could be motivated to back them up, _especially_ considering how well-liked carīdwð were among non-humans...

Charissa abruptly realised she was standing in the middle of an international incident, still developing right this second, that could easily turn into _a full-scale war_ between the ICW and the non-human magical races.

Nope. This was _not_ what she'd expected from the Second Task.

She thought Mum had figured out the same thing. Charissa couldn't see her face from here, but Mum's shoulders had slumped slightly, her wand drifting a little downward. 'She's underwater, isn't she?'

'Yes, with the other hostages.' Delacour let out a sudden groan, rubbing at her face with both hands, muttering, 'I didn't realise the bloody thing meant _hostages_ ,' then a string of nonsense Charissa assumed was cursing in her native language.

'You realise there's certainly magics keeping her safe and alive. A warming charm, at least two stasis charms, a—'

'Those are medical charms!' Delacour said, her voice coming out as an uncomfortably high scream, face twisted into a watery glare. 'Medical charms _designed for use on humans!_ Those idiots back there have _no idea_ how they'll work on her! And trapped so far underwater they wouldn't— _She could already be dead!'_

Charissa didn't think it would be tactful to point out that, if carīdwð hadn't always insisted on being so maddeningly secretive all the time, that likely wouldn't have been a problem.

'Why did your family let them take her in the first place, then?'

'They didn't give any specifics! They said no harm would come to her, she would be in no danger from the Task.'

'And they just trusted them.'

Despite how obviously near the edge of panic she was, Delacour managed to let out a derisive snort. 'Of course not. The Supreme Consul gave his blood-bound oath.'

Charissa winced. Well, if this little caryd died, that meant Dumbledore's life was almost certainly forfeit — the family probably wouldn't wait three seconds before cursing him through blood magic. Not that she could say she really cared that much. She never had forgiven Dumbledore for assaulting her back in second year. But, considering he was Headmaster, and High Enchanter, _and_ Supreme Consul, yeah, him dying would be a bit of a hassle. Not to mention the ICW would retaliate should the carīdwð assassinate their Supreme Consul...

'Couldn't I help instead?'

Delacour was distracted for a moment, blinking at Mum with obvious surprise. 'Ah, no, unfortunately. It has to be Charissa.'

'I'll do it.' In front of her, Delacour sagged slightly with the beginnings of relief, but Mum tensed a little again, turning to look at Charissa over her shoulder. At the odd look she was giving her, Charissa shrugged. 'I'd rather not have to deal with a dozen magical races across Europe declaring war on the ICW, thank you. I'll do it.'

For a couple seconds, Mum just stared at her. Then she let out a sigh, her wand vanishing up her sleeve. After dropping a quick kiss on Charissa's forehead, with another soft wave of shadow magic, Mum was gone.

'Thank you, Charissa.' Mum had hardly been gone for a second, and Delacour was already moving, the eerily stilled circle at their feet sinking a few inches, a thin shell of water rising up around them, until only a pinhole circle of clear air was left over their heads. That was interesting magic, actually, wasn't sure how she was doing that. It sort of felt like fire magic, which couldn't be right.

Charissa sent a short glare at the caryd. 'I don't exactly have a lot of choice.' Delacour opened her mouth to say something, but Charissa kept going before she got it out. 'What exactly do you expect me to do, anyway? _I_ can't get us to the bottom of the lake.'

'I need you to set me on fire.'

Every bit of the annoyance and frustration still bubbling at the back of her head instantly vanished. 'What?'

Eyes slightly narrowed, voice low and tense, Delacour said, 'We don't normally tell you this, as human ego is inflated enough already, but your people are unique. Everyone else, we have to draw our magic from _somewhere_ — in the case of my people, if we are not in direct contact with sun-kissed atmosphere, we can't cast magic at all. Below certain radiation levels, we sicken and die. Which we didn't even learn until very long ago when we first attempted interstellar space travel—'

'Wait, _what?'_

'—but simply being underwater can be just as bad. Once we get a couple feet down, I won't be able to do any magic at all. But, if you are casting fire elemental magic — _any_ spell, it doesn't matter which — I can draw power from that instead. Since I'll be drawing from it, it'll probably take more out of you than usual, but _do not let it go out_. We'll probably both die if you do.'

That... Well, okay, that was weird, but she was still mostly hung up on the _interstellar space travel_ part, seriously... 'Why couldn't you have taken my mother instead? She's more powerful than I am.'

'You _still_ don't—?' Delacour let her breath out in a quick rush, rubbing at her face with both hands for a couple seconds. 'You're _Blessed_ , child, once you mature there will be _no human on Earth_ more powerful than you.'

'What are you—?'

' _I don't have time for this!_ I swear, I'll explain when we get back to shore, but right now _I need you to set me on fire!_ '

Letting her wand fall into her hand, Charissa sighed. If she was going to be a bitch about it, fine. She brought her wand up with a flick, and Delacour vanished behind orange-white flame, the light setting the lake water surrounding them to glittering. For a couple seconds, nothing happened — it was hard to tell with her form entirely wreathed with fire, but Charissa was pretty sure Delacour had been knocked off-balance by the sudden flood of magic, stumbling back a couple steps. Then... It was hard to explain what it felt like, exactly. It was sort of similar to that charm to steal control of sustained magic, like having her own magic ripped out of her metaphorical fingers, but not quite so violent as that. A gentle tug, her magic being pulled by something outside of her, turned and twisted around until it was no longer in her control. It wasn't uncomfortable, exactly, or at least not unbearably unpleasant. Just a bit awkward. She ignored it as best she could, focused on keeping the charm going.

Somewhere in that ball of fire Charissa was making, barely audible over the hissing and crackling, Delacour said, 'This is going to be weird.' The ball of fire twisted a bit, Delacour's magic pulling harder at hers, and—

Charissa stumbled as the not-ground dropped out from under her, Delacour's circle falling precipitously enough Charissa's feet nearly left the surface, her stomach climbing hard up her throat. For a few seconds she scrambled, her temporary distraction weakening her control over her fire charm, power lashing through her mind and body as she grit her teeth and bullied her magic into flowing despite the lack of proper focus. Mum had specifically told her not to try to force her magic like this, but they were probably already low enough Delacour would be powerless if the charm failed, which meant this little bubble of air she was sustaining would instantly pop — she'd rather not go swimming in the Lake in February, thanks. It didn't take too long to get the stream of magic between her mind and her wand stable again anyway, so no big deal.

Well, judging by the ache all along her arm and shoulder, the steam rising from her skin, she'd probably need one of those potions again. But she'd been popping those at least twice a day since the tournament last week, with how impossible to control her magic had been lately, that was nothing new.

Mum had said yesterday her body was _almost_ done acclimating to her fourth register being opened. Which meant that not only would she be able to cast more powerful magic than before without overchannelling, and not only would they be able to start working on wandless magic in depth — she'd been told not to attempt it while she was still acclimating — but she'd be able to stop taking those _fucking potions_. Seriously, they were so terrible. She thought she was starting to develop a conditioned response, she only had to catch sight of one of the bottles and her stomach started preemptively churning.

Over the next moments, they continued falling, Delacour's magic pulling harder and harder at her own, the fire around her gradually shrinking and dimming even as the water around them grew darker, the contrast turning the surface opaque. She noticed the vaguely teardrop-shaped pocket of air they were standing in was slowly shrinking. Delacour, her figure now far more noticeable, the flames a sheath of flickering orange light extending only a couple inches from her skin, inched toward Charissa even as she grew heavier, pressure gathering in her feet and legs as their descent slowed. 'I need more, Charissa.'

Charissa grit her teeth, pulled her attention away from her magic enough to give Delacour a tight glare. 'I don't think I can, without seriously hurting myself.' This wasn't the most magic she'd ever channelled, true, but it was already flowing as a brilliant white river through her, hot and vibrant and only barely restrained. It was rather scary to think about this sort of thing too much, to be honest — she was well aware that, should the walls of her will holding the flow of energy in line fail, this much magic was far more than enough to simply incinerate her from the inside out. It was best not to think about it.

Their little bubble was now barely large enough to hold the both of them, Charissa's arm awkwardly twisted back and around so she could keep her wand pointed at Delacour, her fire spell so thoroughly absorbed she could hardly see it as little flickers of light on the caryd's skin. She thought they might have stopped dropping entirely, the water around them still and black. Delacour was staring at her, her yellowish eyes bright with Charissa's magic, face tight with worry only inches from panic. 'It's not enough. Push harder.'

'You're not _listening_ , I can't—'

'Yes, you _can_. You haven't even touched the Blessing yet, you have far more than this.'

For a couple seconds, Charissa just glared at her. Maybe that statement could be helpful, if she had any idea in hell what this Blessing thing _was_. Did she mean her Faetouch? Because she was pretty sure was already in her fourth register, it didn't feel that different from normal casting, really. 'You should have brought my mother,' she hissed through her teeth. 'This is all I have.'

' _No_ , Charissa, it's _not_. You are Blessed, I know you are, and you have to learn how to use it _right now_ , or my bloodsister is _going to die_.'

'Not just your sister.'

'True, probably not.' By the dismissive way she'd admitted it, it was very, very clear Delacour didn't give a fuck about anyone else right now — not surprising, really. 'You have to find it. It's there. Reach deeper.'

Oh, and was that supposed to be helpful? "Reach deeper", great advice right there, Charissa knew exactly what to do. _ð'Vurgen_ , what did this fucking caryd _want_ from her...

This. It was back here.

Charissa jumped with surprise, again struggled a few seconds to regain control of her stupid magic. Augí? She was pretty sure that was Augí, that thought in her head that wasn't hers.

Yes, obviously, of course it was him. Did she want his help or not?

He didn't have to be like that. Yes, of course she wanted his help. If he knew how to get her out of this without drowning, and ideally _prevent a bloody war_ while she was at it, that'd be great.

 _Bloody war?_ Was that supposed to be funny?

Was he going to help or not?

He was helping, he was helping, keep her knickers on. Though, he guessed, he didn't know why he should expect her to, it wasn't like she ever did.

Hilarious. Her cat was a comedian.

Intelligent, talented, and charming as well. Wasn't she just so very fortunate?

She'd really like to get to the helping her part now.

Yes, yes. It was really quite obvious what the caryd was talking about though. There was this big glowy thing deep in the back of her head, no idea what it was. It sang.

It sang? What did that mean?

It meant it sang. Augí wasn't an expert on mind magic phenomena or anything, his mind and hers were the only ones he'd ever been in. All he knew was it sang. Ever since he'd noticed it he'd been trying to figure out what it was, but he hadn't gotten much anywhere. It was a part of her but not part of her, it was connected to something outside, and it was seriously fucking huge. That was all he had.

Maybe her mind was just like that. Could be a human thing. He wasn't, say, stumbling on her soul or something, was he?

No, he was certain not, it hadn't even been there when he'd first bonded to her. In fact, he was almost positive it'd been sometime around the winter solstice before last. He hadn't noticed it immediately, but looking back afterward he'd found a peculiar alteration to both of their memories at the same time, right around then. If it was this "Blessing" thing this Delacour person was talking about, that must have been when whoever gave out such things had done so.

How did Augí know there was someone who gave this "Blessing" thing to people in the first place?

He didn't know. It was presumption. Did that really matter right now?

No, she guessed it didn't, but she hadn't been able to help it. Channelling this much magic at once made her a bit silly.

Yes, he had noticed that. He thought it was a human thing. But anyway, he was pretty sure it was this thing back here the caryd was talking about.

Back where?

Charissa really had to learn how to be more aware of her own mind. It was not that difficult.

Maybe for an Iya it wasn't.

Oh, come now, Augí was hardly a normal Iya anymore, that should have been bloody obvious by now.

Good point. What did they do, then?

Charissa had no clue how to describe what happened next — it was something the English language simply hadn't developed terminology for. Augí gave her a gentle tug, but not a physical pull, not a touch on her body. Instead, careful to keep enough of her focus on the magic running through her to maintain the charm, Augí pulled at her consciousness with his own, pulling her away from the physical world and into herself. Her eyes-that-were-not-eyes were filled with light-that-was-not-light, a whispering of not-sound filling her not-ears with a confusing jumble of nonsense, intangible tendrils of energy and thought and life and memory brushing against her not-skin again and again, like walking through one silk curtain after another, surrounded by spell glows and whispers she couldn't make out.

Later, she would wonder if how confusing and indistinct everything was was simply what minds were like, or if she was just thinking too hard about keeping her fire magic going to properly focus on it.

Even later, she would learn it was sort of both. Minds were very strange things.

After what felt like some seconds, but Charissa somehow knew had only been an instant, they were there. Except, "there" gave an impression of a physical location, and there wasn't really— Never mind. And Augí was right. It sang. Not with any tune she recognised, deep and high and harsh and thin, an inhuman, eerie harmony that set her not-teeth to vibrating, notes dancing blue and orange and white before her eyes, forming a wall in her head of song and stone and light and ice, ethereal and immutable. And Augí was right about it being big as well, she could feel it, she knew without knowing how she knew, that the song extended far out of her, sang in chorus with hundreds, thousands, millions of other voices she couldn't quite not-hear, there-but-not-there.

And Augí was right about it not being part of her. It was obvious, just not-looking at it, that this wasn't supposed to be here. It felt alien. And it was powerful, so much of it, so vast and overwhelming it made her dizzy just trying to grasp it.

She'd likely never admit this to anyone ever but, in all honesty, she was abruptly terrified.

Hesitantly, ignoring all of her instincts and much of her own logic telling her this was _horrible_ idea, she not-reached a not-hand out for the not-wall of not-music. Even as she wondered how she could possibly get through this not-wall to access the power inside, it vanished without a trace.

And Charissa was rocketed back to her proper place in her body and mind, propelled by a wavefront of light and song. And it crashed over her the next moment, and there was _so much_ of it, far, far too much, she was filled with song glowing a brilliant blue-orange, the melody plaiting into her thoughts until it was loud in her ears, she was distantly aware she was humming along with it, her body was made of nothing but tingling and light she could barely even feel it, all there was was the rushing of wind and magic through all of her being, and for an instant that felt like hours she simply floated in it, lost in light and colour and surreal ecstasy.

Eventually, she remembered she was supposed to be doing something. It was a distracting thought, a fly buzzing in her ear, this whole life and death situation thing. Such a bother. Though, she thought, hardly an issue anymore. In that moment, with song and power running through her mind and blood, she thought the whole problem of the caryd child drowning at the bottom of the Lake was so minor. She thought she could just reach down there and pluck her out herself, or, hell, just lift all the water out of the way for a couple minutes. The song was possibility, and the song could not fail.

The song disagreed.

The song was also practical. There was no need, after all, to expend that much energy when a smaller gift to the other caryd right in front of her would get it done just fine. With a flex of intent, the song poured into the fire charm still flowing along her arm, the river immediately overflowing its banks, flooding into flesh and bone, steaming and burning and cracking.

Even as Delacour stumbled away in their rapidly-expanded air bubble, a high giggle piercing the air as she moved, the very small part of Charissa that was still herself at the moment screamed as her own magic ate away at her arm, shoulder, chest.

But the song noticed. And found it unacceptable. The song wanted to live, it _wanted_ to be sung, to be heard by all and admired, cherished for its beauty, and that couldn't happen if the vessel singing it was incinerating itself. So, even as it maintained its gift bestowed on the caryd, it touched the vessel's limb, finding the spots that were blackening, crumbling away, and reversed the process. Soft, gentle notes of life and healing coaxed ash back into flesh, burnished that blackened into a healthy gleam, caressed away the pain with soothing hands. And it kept singing, a low, constant hum, containing its own power chorusing through the vessel, held back from further harm.

But that wasn't good enough. The song was practical. It couldn't hold itself contained like this _every_ time the vessel sang. That was such a waste of energy. It was better to make a larger investment now. A gift, a blessing it deigned to bestow on the vessel in the understanding that it would improve its voice, give rise to greater performances in the future, songs beautiful and terrible.

The vessel was afraid, the song could feel that. Animal impulses sharpened by eons of evolution crying out in protest, the vessel cringing in horror at the foreign presence singing in its mind, running fingers through its flesh. The song found the response amusing. Not in a sadistic way, not out of cruelty, but as a parent observing the foolish, immature stumbling of a young child. The song found the instincts of flesh cute, in a way, pitiable but precious.

With the slightest flex of will, as the younger caryd was brought into the pocket of air around them, coughing and retching, the elder caryd crying with agonised relief that they'd made it, just barely in time with practical efficiency, the song expanded the fire it was casting to cover them both, steam filling the air with hisses and sizzles, the younger caryd's terrified sobbing transmuted into helpless giggling.

As the carīdwð kept hugging and chattering, the song turned its focus back on its vessel. No, this would not do, this would not do it all. It was far too weak, far too fragile. The song could not live through a voice that would fail before expressing its true glory. No, unacceptable.

So the song ran fingers of light and harmony through the vessel's flesh, touching it, changing it. Transmuting not so much substance as essence. The way the vessel was, the sharp crystals of its bones, the twisting threads of its muscles, the interlaced flakes of its skin, they were not designed to hold its power, were not designed to burn and sing with magic. The vessel's body had not evolved in a world where magic was plentiful, had not developed and perfected the proper defenses.

The song fixed it. Lines of darkness were laid long its bones, open and ready to wick away excess energy before it could grow too thick. Light and life and dark and will embraced every thread of flesh, fine tendrils twined around every twisting chain of molecules, stitching the vessel together, from the tips of its toes to the ends of its hairs, forming a conductive cloth, welcoming paths through which the song's melodies would dance instead of destroy.

The vessel was still the same shape. It was the same colour. It was no stronger, or harder, it could run no faster or further. But it had been changed all the same, the song had made it its own.

It could sing, now, without concern its voice would fail.

It _would_ sing, now, and its people would know the song's beauty.

That was its gift today. There was no reason at all to shudder and cry, no reason to be afraid. The song whispered and hummed, caressing the vessel's half-panicked mind with soft fingers and gentle tones. There was no reason for the vessel to fear the song. The song would never harm it. If it did, why, there would be nobody left to sing! The song did not judge, it did not care for concepts of duty and morality, of goodness and evilness inevitably invented by all beings of flesh at one point or another. It only cared that it was sung, and that it was sung well, that people heard it, that people knew it, and that people adored it. Why shouldn't they? It was life, and it was power, and it was beautiful. The vessel could do with the song whatever it liked. As long as it sang, its song would never harm it. That was its gift.

The vessel would do better to rest today, though. Flesh wasn't designed to be malleable, it did not find agreeable being moulded and transmuted the way the song had needed to. And that was fine. The vessel could rest, for now.

But soon, _soon_ , soon they would sing. And it would be beautiful.

The foreign presence slowly faded away, like music softly petering out, the consciousness directing Charissa's body and her magic like fingers plucking strings releasing its grip. Charissa teetered, fell, hitting the ground rather harder than she'd like, her bum sinking a bit into cold, rocky sand. A quick glance around through blurry eyes showed they were on shore again. The carīdwð were a huge clump of nearly identical people hugging and crying a few metres away, the Tournament officials, the other Champions, complete with the rest of the hostages Delacour must have grabbed at some point, all looking distinctly unsettled, unsure what to do. The murmuring from the crowd was just as much a jumbled, confused mess. Charissa let out a heavy sigh, flopping back to lay against the ground, not caring at the moment that she was certainly getting her hair dirty.

What the fuck was _that?_

Charissa still tingled, tiny sparks of lingering pain deep through her entire body, matched with a dull, warm ache. The second was familiar at least, very similar to how she felt after her longer duelling practices sometimes, but she didn't think she'd had it quite _everywhere_ as it was now. From whatever that... _thing_ had done to her, she knew.

Just thinking about it sent a slithering shiver down her spine. The foreign music oozing between her thoughts, bending and twisting the worst of her fear away with merciless hands, commanding her own magic, commanding it so forcefully Charissa had _felt herself burning to ash_ from the inside out, only for the _thing_ to reverse the process immediately, shimmering fingers slipping through her, everywhere through her, touching not just outside, but _inside_ , every part of her, _changing_ her, and there'd been nothing she could _do_. She was trying not to think about it, it was making her queasy, but it was too close, she couldn't stop. She'd never been so...so...

Well, she guessed "violated" was the word. She didn't want to think about it.

Luckily, a distraction came before too long. 'Charissa!' She felt something tense and hard in her chest ease slightly at the familiar voice, pushed herself up to sitting just in time to get knocked flat on her back again when Hermione slid to her knees and bowled her over. Charissa's head actually hit the ground hard enough she saw white and red flash across her vision, but for some absurd reason she found herself faintly smiling anyway. Probably something to do with the warmth pressing down on her, the arms around her neck, the lips pressing down again and again all over her face.

'It's okay, Maïa.' She lifted arms still slightly unsteady, wrapped them around Hermione's waist and back, held her to herself. 'I'm fine.' Well, okay, she wasn't _quite_ fine, but she was still trying not to think about it, and she _definitely_ didn't want to talk about it.

'Don't do—' Hermione was pushing against her arms, sitting up away from her again. Wow, her face was really red. And then her hands were coming down on Charissa, one hit after another over her shoulders and her chest and her head. Not hard, light open-handed slaps quick and gentle enough they didn't hurt at all, falling over Charissa in a fluttering hail. '—you _stupid_ —'

She really couldn't explain it. She had no idea why she did it. Maybe she was still a bit silly from all that magic she'd just had running through her? Whatever, for whatever reason, it happened.

Charissa burst into laughter. It just sprung out of her, high and breathless, the little sparks of quiet agony the song had left behind twinging with each warble. After only a few seconds her lungs were already burning, her throat hurt, but she _couldn't stop_. Eh, oh well. She shoved herself up and forward — along the way, she caught a glimpse of her family waiting a short distance away, but she ignored them for now — again catching Hermione in her arms, burying her face in her neck.

Hermione tried to shove her away again for the first couple seconds but quickly gave up, just holding her back, the slightest shake in her arms. 'I really hate you sometimes, you know.' Her voice didn't sound quite right, and it took Charissa a couple seconds to realise she'd probably been crying.

She'd later learn the enchantments set up to watch the Task had caught most of what had happened in the Lake. Apparently, it hadn't been fun to watch.

Grinning to herself for reasons she couldn't explain, Charissa forced passed the giggles, 'No, you don't.'

The only response Hermione could manage for that was low grumbling, breathed into her hair. Charissa pressed her smiling lips into Hermione's throat, fighting the giggles relentlessly clawing at her, feeling thoroughly exhausted, and all too warm and comfortable.

But, then, Hermione _was_ comfortable.

When she finally had control of the giggles, and Hermione had finally let her up — though she didn't let go, Charissa's left arm wasn't hers anymore — she then had to spend a couple minutes being fussed over by first Mum, then a Healer, then Mum again. She just tolerated it, trying not to be too annoyed. Though, she was mildly distracted by the Healer not finding anything different about her. She'd thought that...whatever the... _thing_ had done to her would have come up on medical scans, but apparently not. Mum did say she was leaking magic rather badly, which they'd have to work on later. Which was also weird, because Charissa hadn't noticed at all. It wasn't that hard to hold it back, Mum said, it would only take a couple of hours of meditation to figure it out, but she'd be making people around her uncomfortable until she did, so Mum would be teaching her the basics before leaving for Kemet later. If she was having trouble with it while Mum was gone, Severus knew how to manage it too, possibly even better than Mum did, he shouldn't give her any trouble.

At one point, in her talk about her leaking magic, Hermione had quietly asked Mum if that was why Charissa was glowing, and Mum had just said yes, it was, that could happen sometimes. Charissa had blankly stared at Hermione for a couple seconds, blinking to herself. She was _glowing?_ That... Huh. She couldn't see it. Weird.

Of course, the stuff with Mum and the Healer fussing over her wasn't _nearly_ as bad as the conversation with Dad. One would almost think he was annoyed with her for saving a little girl's life and quite likely preventing another major European war. She wasn't even sure why he disapproved. Probably more reputation-related stuff. She was aware she didn't have a good one, but she didn't see how this could possibly make it worse. But she was well-accustomed to dealing with his disapproval by now, and he was done before too long anyway, so no big deal.

She was just being dragged off in a clump of Potters and Blacks and Longbottoms when everyone stumbled to a gradual halt, going noticeably glassy-eyed. She was pretty sure it was that slick, suffocatingly warm magic filling the air around them. It was trying to slip in toward her as well, but it didn't seem to be doing a very good job of it. Whether it was Augí keeping it away or something else, she didn't know, but it was barely affecting her at all. Well, most everyone — she noticed Mum and Dora and Alice and Frank were still fine, glaring off behind them. When she followed their gazes to find who they were so annoyed at, she was not at all surprised.

Apparently, Delacour hadn't done quite a perfect job of absorbing her fire magic: she had a cloak wrapped around her, likely borrowed from one of her relatives, but from what little Charissa could see she was pretty sure a fair portion of her clothes had been burned away. The magic in the air was flowing off of her, so hot and heavy Charissa could quite nearly see it drifting around her. She was ignoring the four humans glaring at her — considering who those four were, Charissa wasn't sure if that made her brave or foolish — looking instead straight at Charissa. 'You have questions. I can answer them.'

Charissa bit her lip, frowning to herself. She guessed that was probably true. Delacour had obviously known that _thing_ was there, and had seemingly even known what it was, so she probably could. Just...Charissa wasn't quite sure she really wanted to talk about it right now. Or ever. 'How long would it take?'

'Just a few minutes.'

She let out a long sigh. Fuck it.

After shaking off Mum, which took no little convincing, Charissa followed Delacour across the grounds. Followed directly behind her, actually — it was late in the season, but there was still a bit of snow on the ground, and the caryd was helpfully melting a channel through the stuff as she went, so it was easiest to walk behind her. Once they were a couple dozen metres away from her family, from the crowd around the Lake, Delacour stopped. With a lifting gesture from both of her hands, thin red-orange flames leapt out of the ground in a circle five metres wide around them, rose and curved into a hemispherical dome over their heads. With another gesture, a pulse of sharp magic that made Charissa blink, the fire froze, looking for anything like some unfamiliar gemstone, merely carved to take the appearance of flame, surrounding them in a glittering shell. Charissa felt Delacour lay a few more charms with little flicks of her fingers, then a few more with a wand pulled out of nowhere. Then she sank to sitting cross-legged on the ground, gesturing Charissa to sit with her.

All right. Fine. But Charissa pulled out her wand to hit the area with a softening charm first — the ground was rather rocky here. She was only sitting for a second or two, the hard dirt under her as comfortable as her bed, when Delacour opened her mouth.

'It's a long story,' she started, in French, her voice soft and low, 'and I'm not sure where to start. And there's a lot I'm not allowed to tell you. Someone will,' she said, cutting over Charissa before she could say anything. 'I don't know when, but someone will. I just can't. Maybe, I...' Delacour trailed off, thin brows dipped in a frown, arms hugging her cloak tighter around her. 'From the beginning, then.

'I know humans are aware we're not from around here. My race, we are not native to this world like yours is. The world we are from...' Delacour shifted a bit, her cloak loosening enough Charissa got a rather good angle down her front. She was too tired at the moment to really be distracted by it, though. 'It is not like this one, in many ways. It... There are bacteria, you would say, deep in the ground, as part of their metabolism they release gaseous halogens, bubble up through the soil. Fluorine and chlorine, mostly. There's always some of it, in the air. You wouldn't be able to breathe without filtration, on our homeworld. There's enough oxygen, yes, but the other things would poison you.

'But there's also far more magic there. Far more, there is magic in everything, everywhere. Here, you have magical creatures but also ordinary animals, magical plants but also mundane ones; there, every living thing has magic of one kind or another. And not just living things, but the rock, the dirt, the water, the air, everything is saturated with it. And, much as steam rises to form clouds and rain down again, that magic does not sit still. There are storms, the air glowing as the elements rage. Lightning splitting molecules in the air, touching off halogen fires that sweep the earth, burning entire forests to the ground at a pass.' A smile pulled at her lips, slightly wistful. 'That's why many creatures from our homeworld developed an affinity for fire: we needed to to survive.'

Through most of that ramble, Charissa could only stare at the caryd. She'd seen enough muggle films with Mum to get an idea of what she was talking about, and she didn't really know what to think of it. This was certainly not the sort of implication made in class. 'You're saying...you're what, a _space_ _alien_ , or something?'

Delacour shrugged. 'Sort of. It's more complicated than just a different planet around a different sun. I couldn't say, point up at the sky, and say it's _that_ way. Because, it's...' She frowned to herself for a moment, looking up at the frozen fire around them, then shrugged again. 'It's no particular direction, exactly. A different planet around a different sun, yes, but also a different space. A different realm. Though, of course,' she said, a soft smile pulling at her lips again, 'it does depend what you mean. My people are from a different world, so I guess you could call us aliens if you wanted to. But I was born in Paris. All of my parents were born in France, even. I've never been to our homeworld. We all go at least once — you could call it a pilgrimage, I guess — but I'm not old enough yet. So, it depends on what you mean.

'But, anyway, as I was saying. A very long time ago, thousands of years, we only knew that one world. We shared it with two other races of beings. We lived in the highlands, mostly keeping to ourselves, but we had long arrangements with the other two that we sort of acted as ambassadors between them. This,' she said, pulling a hand out from behind her cloak to wiggle her fingers in the air, 'was very useful. We could understand them better than they could each other, so. Anyway, because of that, we kept up with their news very well. So, when they discovered life on another world, a few stars away, we heard of it almost immediately. And not just any life, but intelligent life, advanced life. Figuring out how to communicate was slow at first, but before long we could talk back and forth with them, light-years away, as easy as you could pick up a telephone and call someone in Greece.

'And we wanted to travel there, to meet in person, you see. My ancestors were especially eager to meet a new people. But we couldn't get it to work. Our distant neighbours on their world had their problems, and we had our own.' Well, she guessed falling ill and dying in the middle of the trip, if Charissa remembered what she'd said earlier correctly, was definitely a _problem_... 'After centuries of trying, most were sure it would never happen.

'Then we got a call from them. They said people had come. New people, from a different realm. That they were very powerful, and they knew what they were doing. They had been travelling between stars and even between realms for longer than our civilisation has been around, you see. And we should prepare our welcome, because they were coming to meet us next.'

'The Fae, you mean.'

Delacour tilted her head a bit, hesitantly nodded. 'We don't call ourselves that, but yes. Because it is "we" now, you see. What you call the Fae are not one distinct people or even group of people. There are _hundreds_ of different peoples, native to hundreds of different worlds, scattered across dozens of different realms. And new peoples are added all the time as our reach spreads. Each time a new realm is opened, new worlds to colonise discovered, sometimes there will already be people living on them. And they are welcomed as everyone else. There are so many of us that I don't think I can give you a good impression of it. There are, what, six milliard humans or so? And you think that many. There are single peoples among us, spread across a hundred worlds, numbering in the _trillions_. And there are _hundreds_ of peoples. This world is a very small place, when all the civilised universe is considered. Small and primitive.'

Charissa didn't know how to feel about that. On the one hand, yes, she could see how that was rather ridiculous. Hundreds of trillions was an absurd number of people. She wasn't really sure why Delacour was talking about all this, but sure, she could see that was insane. But she also couldn't help feeling faintly offended. 'If this world is so "primitive", what are you doing here?'

For a couple seconds, Delacour didn't say anything, staring at her with eyes wide. 'Ah, I did not intend that as a slight, Charissa. Besides, generally, my people prefer living on the frontier, so to speak. Where things are new, less stagnant, not yet done growing. When this realm was first opened and your world discovered, I think roughly twenty thousand years ago now, my Clan and a few close to us were some of the first to volunteer to settle here.' Her lips pulled into a smile again. 'We're still being ambassadors, I guess.'

Nope. Absolutely no clue how she was supposed to respond to that.

'But, as I was saying, there are hundreds and hundreds of peoples, with their own histories and cultures, and all with magic of their own. But they have at least one thing in common: we all die. Some may take longer, and others shorter, but in time all our bodies grow frail, and eventually fail. All these hundreds of peoples, except thirty. Thirty peoples, they have grown so powerful, so thoroughly magical, that they can pass millennia uncounted and be unchanged by them. They _can_ die, from violence, or accident, or poison, or disease, but age will not take them. Some of them are so old they have outlived civilisations, entire peoples. They go on, and on. And among each of them, there is a single clan who speaks for them all, who guides them through the uncountable ages. The Thirty Clans are the closest thing the immortals have to royalty, and the closest thing we lesser beings have to divinity.

'The story goes,' Delacour said, a somewhat more serious cast falling over her face, 'that, a very long time ago, back when what would become our alliance was limited to a single realm, the oldest of the undying peoples shared a world with a few mortal ones. And one of these immortals fell deeply, inescapably in love with one of their mortal neighbours. And they knew that, inevitably, their beloved would age, and die. They decided this was unacceptable.'

 _The song found it unacceptable_. Charissa couldn't suppress the slightest shiver.

'Long they researched, and toiled, and experimented. Long enough their lover was lost, but still they worked. In time, after millennia of trial and error, of experiment and failure, they created the Blessing. Any mortal being, it is said, who is given the Mark becomes... Well, they are no longer what they were. They are as one of the undying — supremely powerful, intrinsically magical. And, much like the undying, the years will not touch them, and they live on forever. And the Blessing has been used ever since, sparingly, the secret of how to give it kept by the Thirty.' She gave Charissa a flat, suggestive sort of look.

'You're saying...' Charissa stopped, swallowed once and again, trying to wet her suddenly dry throat. 'You're saying that's what it is. The, the thing in my head.'

'Yes.'

Oh... Erm. 'And you couldn't be wrong?'

Giving her a slightly reproachful look, Delacour shook her head. 'I'd never seen a Blessed before — most could go their whole lives never meeting one — but I knew it almost the instant I saw you. It's all over you. It...' Delacour lifted a hand, partway reached to Charissa's chest, eyes staring somewhat out of focus. Then she pulled it back, resettled her cloak over herself a bit, and cleared her throat, shifting in place. 'Sorry. I also bumped into an immortal a couple months ago. That was the first time I'd ever met one, actually, and she just happened to be one of the Thirty. That was an interesting day, let me tell you. But anyway, she also confirmed it. I'm told she's been trying to track down which of the Thirty Blessed you, when she has the time for it. No news yet.'

Charissa drew in a long breath through her mouth, let it slowly leak out her nose. Okay. She could deal with this. Okay. Well, more than deal with this. Once she'd had some time to get over the whole... _thing_ that had just happened back there, once she didn't remember quite so clearly anymore foreign magic forcing its way through her mind and body, she expected she'd probably be rather pleased about this. Because, well. Who wouldn't want to be more powerful? Who wouldn't want to live forever? If it was being given to her, fuck, she'd take it.

She was positive there was more to this she hadn't been told yet, but at the moment it didn't sound bad at all. She might have to suffer through an episode much like that one earlier every once in a while, but... Well, it seemed like she got power and immortality in exchange, and that sounded like one hell of a good deal to her. Yes.

Okay. She cleared her throat a little. 'Ah. Does it so much matter who did it?'

Delacour hesitated for a couple seconds, yellow eyes staring with an odd sort of unsteadiness Charissa couldn't quite read. 'Well. That power you're carrying doesn't come from nowhere. Part of the reason there are so few Blessed is because the clan doing the Blessing must give up some of themselves. For each Blessed they make, the clan is somewhat less. Not a lot, true, they're not crippling themselves by any means. But less. And because of this...' Delacour let out a sudden, hard sigh, rubbing at her face with both hands. Which sort of meant her cloak came sliding off her shoulders. Not that Charissa could say she'd rather it hadn't, mind. She really had burned up Delacour's clothes good, wasn't exactly very much left. Didn't mind the view, not at all. 'Oh, there's so much you don't...

'This isn't something we take _lightly_ , Charissa. The Blessing is...' Delacour trailed off, shaking her head at the dome of frozen fire above them. 'There are people who literally give their lives for it. Who swear themselves, devote themselves to that clan. Most Blessed are essentially slaves to whichever of the Thirty elevated them. They go into it willingly, and it is a... There is no greater gift a person could receive, no greater honour. Who wouldn't want to live forever, if they could?

'But, see, your situation is strange, because you _don't know_ any of this. Ordinarily, there would have been a period of at least a few years, where the clan who was Blessing you would have talked with you, and taught you, and trained you, and there would have been negotiations and agreements, and all that. That you _didn't even know_ you are Blessed is... It _doesn't happen_ , Charissa. It shouldn't have happened.'

Huh. Delacour seemed almost... Charissa wasn't sure what word to use for it. "Scandalised" wasn't quite right, "horrified" didn't fit either. Whatever, she got the impression Delacour thought Charissa had been wronged somehow, being left to figure this all out for herself. Which, she could see how doing something that held such cultural importance for her people, but not doing it _correctly_ , yes, she could see how that could bother Delacour. Fine. But, to be entirely honest, if the people doing it usually required the people in her position to essentially swear themselves to eternal slavery, she rather felt she preferred it this way. Unless she was ignorant of other reasons this would make trouble later, which she guessed was very possible. 'How did it happen, then?'

Delacour sighed again, rubbing at her face some more. 'I don't know. Stormbreather didn't deign to share her thoughts with me, but, I think... I don't know. Part of some complicated, nefarious plan we won't even see coming until it does. Perhaps it was an individual from one clan, acting on their own, for whatever reasons. Our minds were not designed to endure so long, and the older immortals can get rather, well, _odd_. Stormbreather is convinced whoever did it will make themselves and their purpose known eventually — perhaps not even intentionally but, as whatever it is their plan is proceeds, Her Grace believes she'll be able to figure it out. But I don't know. Who knows what will happen these next decades? There's no telling.'

Charissa turned away to look up at the frozen fire surrounding them. Which was rather pretty stuff, she thought, she wouldn't mind learning how to do that herself. Actually, she thought she remembered her mother doing something rather similar a few times, she'd have to ask. Anyway, whatever, focus on what was going on. She thought she might be too tired for serious thoughts right now. She was feeling rather numb and fuzzy, so, yes, probably.

As she understood things, it sounded like she had some unknown patron out there. Someone so old and powerful a people out there numbering in the hundreds of trillions more or less worshipped their kind as gods, if she was reading Delacour's hints correctly. This person had put that song in her which, yes, that...whatever that was back in the Lake had been _extremely_ unpleasant, that was true. But the song would make her ridiculously powerful by human standards — she thought Delacour was implying she would be roughly as powerful as one of her unknown patron's people, which was apparently ludicrously powerful.

Oh, and also immortal. That too.

Which... Well, she didn't think that was a bad thing. In fact, she rather thought that was a very good thing. She guessed it was possible she might end up changing her mind later, if that patron showed up and started trying to order her around, but for now she didn't think she saw a downside.

Well, she guessed she might a little bit if she was going to stop aging immediately. She didn't think she wanted to be fourteen forever. But if she was going to be so powerful she could probably change her appearance without trouble, so.

Oh, hey, maybe she could make herself taller! Yes, she rather liked the sound of all this, she didn't see a downside.

Charissa turned back to Delacour, who was giving her a rather odd sort of look. Not sure what kind of odd, but definitely odd. Oh well, not important. 'Well. Thanks for informing me. Unless there was anything else?'

For a few seconds, Delacour just flatly stared at her. 'No. I've already told you more than I'm legally allowed, in fact.'

'Ah, well.' Charissa couldn't help the smirk coming to her face. 'I won't tell if you won't.'

Wow. Didn't think she'd ever even heard of a caryd petulantly huffing like that.

* * *

Suspended a dozen metres above the ground on soft fingers of light, shrouded from sight by a gently-woven curtain of song, the one called Stormbreather watched the little bird's crystalline shell dissipate, steady eyes following the nascent Blessed as she returned to her family.

She knew what had transpired within that bubble of privacy young Filʊ̄s had cast. The little bird wasn't capable of shutting out whatever magics she could have thought to use to observe, but she hadn't needed any. She could feel the currents on the air well enough to know.

She'd been more right about this Charissa than even she'd thought. The girl was not one to suffer meddling lightly. She was far too strong-willed, far too independently-minded. Which was, she thought, perhaps genetic. Lily did seem to make trouble wherever she went. This last decade or two had been fun to watch, in part because of her. Charissa was even less predictable than Lily, though. Lily, at least, one could expect to jump a certain way if certain points were pressured. She valued things, valued people, deeply, and how she reacted when they were threatened was predictable. Risky for those doing the threatening, yes, but predictable.

She wasn't sure which way Charissa would jump. She couldn't even be sure if Charissa would jump at all. Reading the threads binding her to her family, her friends, her lovers... She couldn't say for sure.

Knowing all this, further confirmed by the thoughts and feelings she saw swirl in the child's mind, she wondered if whoever had Blessed this Charissa had made a very serious mistake. She doubted the girl could be controlled. Whoever had Blessed her might find her quicker to lash back at them than to strike their enemies. This was why mortals such as this girl, so hard and so cold and so willful and so bright, there were reasons they were never sponsored. Such souls could be beautiful, yes, she could not deny the attraction, but they were never Blessed. Ever. They could not be controlled. Giving such power to a servant who would not follow orders was something few were foolish enough to do.

Unless...

No. Nobody would be that... _reckless_. Would they?

Unless this had been the _point_. Unless whoever it had been had chosen the child _specifically_ because she could not be controlled. Because she would do as she willed, and fight any who tried to cow her... In that light, that whoever it was had never contacted Charissa almost made sense. If she were supposed to be an independent actor, a free agent of chaos, there would be no reason to.

Given what was coming, she could even see the logic to it. Perhaps. Charissa could be exactly what was needed. She could make them stop and think for two seconds, if things went right, she could make them _see_.

But, if things went wrong, she could also ruin everything.

She would have to watch, then. She would have to keep an eye on the child, intervene before she could do anything _too_ stupid. Events were moving already, events she couldn't stop or even slow, and she was certain young Charissa would inevitably be drawn into them. That, at least, she was sure of. She would have to watch, and listen. And wait.

By now, she had long grown quite good at that.

* * *

Teri Gaunt — " _Teri" is short for Leuteris, by the way. Can't remember if that's shown up yet or not. If you've forgotten, Teri is grandfather to Hesper, Alex, and Caelestis, and son to Merope. Yes,_ _ **that**_ _Merope. I jokingly refer to him as not-Voldemort._

Cionaodh — _Unless I'm completely crazy, this should be pronounced something like " **kih** -nee" (IPA: _/'cɪ.n̪ˠi:/ _), but don't hold me to that. Teri Gaunt's third child, Hesper/Alex's uncle._

sœurette au sang — _French...obviously. So far as I know, it's not a phrase used in real French, I made it up. (I did a Google search out of curiosity, but the instances I found were across phrase boundaries.) Those words are just "(younger) sister" and "blood", using the preposition_ à _, prepositions are always weird to translate. And I'm not absolutely certain, but if that would seem a little odd to native French ears, well...good?_

[six milliard...in the _trillions_ ] — _Fleur is counting in long scale. A lot of Francophone places still use long scale, but it's not much used in most of the English-speaking world anymore. A "milliard" is ten to the ninth, or a billion in short scale. A "trillion" is ten to the eighteenth, or quintillion in short scale. Magical Britain ended up jumping on the short scale train a couple centuries ago (before muggle Britain did, in fact). In Charissa's head, "milliard" is simply a synonym for "billion" (which is technically correct), but she thinks by "trillion" Fleur means ten to the twelfth, not ten to the eighteenth. So she's actually underestimating the scale of what Fleur is talking about by a factor of a million. Whoops?_

* * *

 _I think I've dropped enough hints now for someone to maybe connect the dots and figure out what the titular "long game" is — if not the motive behind enacting it in the first place. Reminders:  
Fleur: "...your world discovered, I think roughly twenty thousand years ago..." (ch.28)  
[The vessel's body had not evolved in a world where magic was plentiful...] (ch. 28)  
_ _Fleur: "Everyone else, we have to draw our magic from_ somewhere _... Below certain...levels, we sicken and die." (ch. 28)  
_ _?: "There are all sorts of plans, you see, plans my people have for yours." (ch. 14)  
_ _Charissa: "If the magic doesn't come from us, where_ does _it come from?" Lily: "No one knows. ...magnitude of all ambient magic...has been slowly increasing over human history." (ch. 20)  
_ _[..._ _blood alchemy, an immensely powerful branch of blood magic, which was considered dark.] (ch. 13)  
_ _Lily: "Black, white, and elemental magic in general were not_ invented by _humans, but_ taught to _us by the Fae." (ch. 13)  
_ _[(Stormbreather had) been keeping an eye on humanity, teaching them the occasional bit of magic, prodding them along.] (ch. 24)  
Stormbreather: "I can't imagine anyone from either of the other factions would stoop so low as to claim a human." (ch. 24)  
_ _[(Fawkes) sang of the passing of ages, the sun setting on one day and rising on another. The solidifying of a plot, one devised by self-righteous and tyrannical actors, and they few arrayed in opposition.] (ch. 24)_

 _See! I do have a plan! It's just taking forever to get there. Has it really been a year now? lol_

 _Until next time,  
~Wings_


	29. Fourth Year — Aftershocks

_I exist._

* * *

 _March 2nd, 1995_

* * *

Charissa woke up, but only very gradually. She really didn't want to. She was too comfortable, surrounded by warmth and smoothness, seductively holding her under. As she grew slowly more aware, she came to realise why: she'd slept with Hermione again, of course. Now that Hermione was over the greater part of her skittishness, she didn't see much reason not to. Hermione made a very good pillow. She didn't want to move, it was far too nice. In that moment, she almost felt she could stay here forever.

If only that niggling need to use the toilet could just go away, that'd be fantastic.

Not that she'd actually be leaving bed to take care of that, of course. Too much effort. It was rather effectively waking her up, though, and that was annoying.

Slowly, carefully, she slipped off of Hermione, avoiding jostling her while disentangling their limbs with some effort, rolled the very short distance over to the edge of the bed — really not meant for two people, these things. A quick wave of her wand had the annoyance that had woken her done with. She thought she caught a little bit of light around the curtains, stopped herself from pushing them open to get a peek at the sky at the last second. Hermione _really_ hadn't appreciated it that one time she'd just whipped aside the curtains and gotten up, she'd added that to the list in her head of things to avoid. So she just cast a charm to check the time too. It was on the later end of the early morning, too soon to need to get up quite yet, but also too late for trying to go back to sleep to be much worth it. Hermione would probably be waking up soon.

At the thought, she glanced behind her, eyes falling on Hermione's face, quickly confirming she was asleep. Not that she'd really needed to look to know that — Hermione felt very different asleep than she did awake. Magically, she meant. She had been growing gradually more sensitive over the last couple years, she'd noticed, but it was weird the things she could sense since that Blessing thing had changed her. Not anything new, she thought, not anything she hadn't felt before, just things she hadn't consciously noted. She'd known just from observing her that Hermione had to have a _very_ active mind, always thinking about everything all the time. She wasn't sure Hermione had ever just _stopped_ thinking for a single second ever. And she'd known Hermione was powerful. How easily most magic came to her, and how the air would sometimes crackle around her when she was annoyed or upset, it was impossible not to notice. Not as powerful as Charissa, perhaps, but probably within a couple shades of Neville. So, sorceress material. On the lower end of the spectrum, barring any future developments, but still.

She'd known that, but it was still intriguing to actually _feel_ it. It was hard to explain, exactly. It felt...sort of like a buzz, she guessed. Her incessant thoughts a high, energetic thrumming, deepened and amplified in proportion with the energy flowing about her. Charissa's skin tingled with it, just sitting next to her as she read. While she slept, it was much quieter, calmer. A low, constant hum, pulsing ever so slightly with each beat of her heart. That's how Charissa fell asleep most nights now, passively listening to Hermione's sleepy mind, gently drawing in and down. It was rather nice.

So she hadn't needed to look at Hermione to know she was still asleep. Mostly, she just liked looking at her. Round face uncharacteristically relaxed, persistently tangled hair a frizzy brown halo about her head, chest slowly rising and falling with almost inaudible breaths. With Hermione on her back, and the covers retreated to half down her stomach as they had when Charissa had pulled away, she had a rather good view, she took a few seconds just to watch.

She'd gotten the impression almost right away that Hermione was used to sleeping on her side. Hermione had never actually said anything about it, but she thought so. But Hermione was very comfortable, and hadn't taken much convincing at all. Charissa was still surprising herself a bit with her persistent desire to sleep on Hermione the way she did nightly now, she wouldn't have expected it of herself, but she'd mostly just decided to ignore her own confusion. The harmony of Hermione's gently humming mind and softly thumping heart was very good music to fall asleep to, and her breasts made very good pillows. Not too complicated, she guessed.

It was still early, the haze of sleep still lingering over her mind and body. But, as always, watching Hermione the way she was, thinking about her the way she was, inevitably led her thoughts in a very familiar direction. A _very_ familiar direction, one her brain had been treading habitually for over a year now. It was just recently she could act on it. And so she would. Charissa cast one last charm, a nice thick silencing, before setting her wand down again.

She slipped back down, gently pulling the covers up over her neck with one hand, sinking back into the smooth warmth of their mixed scents, sliding in against Hermione. She felt a smile pulling at her lips, that familiar eager rush seeping into her blood, almost instantly with the feeling of warm, soft skin against hers, unbroken shoulder to toe. Slowly, she half-draped herself over Hermione, arm drifting across her to settle over her hip, knee locking around hers, face sliding along her shoulder to settle in against her neck. For a moment, Charissa simply lay there, bathing in her, listening to the low song of life and magic threaded through her.

Oh, yes, Hermione _was_ comfortable.

But she didn't stay still for long. She tightened her arm and leg about her, brought her lips against the skin of Hermione's neck. She moved slow, gentle. Soft kisses, one after another, drifting gradually up to her jaw, back under her ear, down her throat to just above her clavicle, and back again. Slow, but uneasing, waiting patiently for Hermione to react. It didn't take long, less than a minute, and Hermione was shifting under her, the motion forcing an unconscious smile, a low groan vibrating against her lips. For a few more seconds, Hermione just lay there, breathing, chin tilted a bit away, giving Charissa better access seemingly by instinct. Finally she spoke, her voice a thin, slurred whisper. 'What d'ya think you're doing, young lady.'

Charissa couldn't repress a smirk at that. It always amused her when Hermione said things like that. Most of the time, she didn't think Hermione realised she was doing it, but Charissa hadn't made a point of informing her. She had a suspicion Hermione was unconsciously channelling her mother a bit, and she had no idea how Hermione would react to the thought. Best to keep it to herself. She hummed against Hermione's neck for a second, then muttered, 'Waking you up. Would you rather I didn't?'

For long moments, Hermione didn't answer. By the way her high, light breathing seemed to be in time with the circuit Charissa's fingers were making along the curve of her hip, she figured it was a combination of fading sleepiness and growing distraction. 'Nah. I think I'll be going back to sleep now.'

'That so?'

'Mm-hmm.'

She slid up a couple centimetres, so she could whisper directly into Hermione's ear. 'Are you sure that's what you want to be doing right now?' Even as she spoke, she shifted her weight around a little further over her. With the way she'd earlier locked her leg around Hermione's knee, this brought her thigh high between Hermione's legs, hot and smooth and somehow already noticeably slick against her skin. Done quite intentionally, of course. She couldn't help smirking a bit as Hermione's breath caught, shifted under her a little. 'Really sure?'

Hermione let out her breath in a high, rushing sigh, even as her arms moved, softly snaking around Charissa's back and hips. 'Morag?'

'Put up a silencing already.'

Hermione froze, stiffening slightly. Somehow, Charissa wasn't sure exactly how to even explain it, she could sort of feel her sense of Hermione sharpening somewhat, reaching out to the magic around them, and she knew Hermione was focusing on her own senses, searching for the paling. 'Oh. You did.' Then she felt something else weird. She wasn't sure how, wasn't sure why. It was an odd, bubbling feeling, not within her but not without either, not exactly magic but not exactly not. Somehow, she knew Hermione was amused.

Smiling herself, she whispered, 'What?'

'Quite sure of yourself, aren't you.'

'What, are you saying I shou—'

With a rush of motion Charissa _entirely_ didn't see coming, Hermione surged up and around. The bed and curtains swirled around her in the darkness, and Charissa was suddenly on her back. Her arm got twisted a bit in the process, a hot twingeing in her elbow and shoulder, but she just shoved the distraction off with a grimace. Not that it was _at all_ hard to focus on something else. After all, Hermione hadn't gone anywhere, still lying against her, now half on top of her, face only millimetres away. Since neither of them happened to be wearing a single bloody thing at the moment, she had a quite a list of things to be focusing on, and a little accidental wrenching of her arm was nowhere even close to the top.

Quickly climbing to the top was her wondering exactly what was going on in Hermione's head right now. She was acting sort of weird, Charissa couldn't figure it out. And it wasn't the first time Hermione had had moments like this, so Charissa had had plenty of opportunity to figure it out, and she still hadn't. She was just lying there. Face quite nearly pressed against hers, close enough Charissa could feel her breath, softly brushing her lips and neck. Eyes sometimes meeting hers, others lazily drifting around. Her fingers tracing, light and soft, along her jaw, across her cheek, slipping against her hairline. Just looking at her.

After some seconds, Charissa couldn't take it anymore. 'What?'

'Nothing,' Hermione whispered against her lips. And she kissed her, soft, a touch so light and gentle Charissa could barely even feel it. A few more times, slow. 'You're just beautiful, is all.'

Erm. Okay, then? Hermione was so weird sometimes.

Not that she could spare the attention to think about it too much at the moment. Because Hermione was kissing her again, and it was different this time. Still slow, still gentle, but somehow Charissa knew. She wasn't sure how, exactly. Something in her breath, maybe? Some slight tension in her body against hers? Perhaps even some feeling in her magic she didn't have words for, wasn't fully aware of? She didn't know. But she knew Hermione's thoughts were turning, she could almost feel it happen, moving from whatever weird mood she'd been in a second ago, moving into one a few shades different. One Charissa understood just fine.

Hermione stayed slow and gentle, though, a tone Charissa just internally shrugged at and matched. She didn't mind. But she could feel it, in the way Hermione's hand clutched at her hip, the way she shifted against her, the way her breath caught ever so slightly at her throat every couple seconds, she could feel the hot eagerness building in her. Which brought an involuntary smirk to Charissa's lips, for some reason.

That animal tension, that sense of tightly contained motion, was building in herself too, but she was also getting gradually uncomfortable, a growing sense in the back of her head that something here was _wrong_. Almost without even realising she was doing it, she twisted her elbow and ankle against the bed, pushed up and around, soon had Hermione on her back. There, much better. She slipped away from Hermione's lips and attacked her neck instead, Hermione letting out something between a gasp and a moan, the sound sending a hot, sharp tingle through her blood, sudden and intense enough she shivered.

After a moment, her head curled to the side and fingers digging into Charissa's back and legs restlessly shifting against the sheets, Hermione whispered into her ear, thick and breathless. 'Get closer to me,' she said, one arm at Charissa's back and another at her hips pulling her in, down.

Charissa actually almost laughed at that. She was pretty sure that, at the moment, getting closer to Hermione was physically impossible. But she had a pretty good idea what she meant. She shifted her weight a bit, coming more directly over Hermione, slid one knee over hers, carefully pushed it up and aside — didn't want to twist anything, that could really hurt. And she gradually slid into place, Hermione sucking in a shuddering breath as her thigh slipped against her, her back curling enough Charissa could feel her stomach pushing up against her. Which made getting the angles right far more difficult, especially with how much shorter she was, but she entirely didn't mind, feeling Hermione move like this always made her smile. But she wasn't only moving on the outside, Charissa could feel her moving on the inside as well, a whirlpool of thought and feeling and magic so cacophonous Charissa could feel it prickle against her skin, and even as she focused on the taste of Hermione's skin, the high sound of her breath, the feel of her against her, she turned to focus on the turning of her mind, the churning of her power, a splash of colour and music she could hardly—

— _the index of diffusion is inversely proportional to—_

'— _mind looking after her, Mum. You really look like you could—'_

— _oh_ _ **God**_ _, why does she feel so_ _ **good**_ _, I can't—_

— _a peptide hormone, originally correlated with uterine contractions — hence the Greek roots literally meaning "quick birth" — but has since been found to have a complex role in the formation of seemingly all social relationships—_

— _laughs hard enough I can feel it against my shoulder, says, 'Where's the fun in that?' and I have to wonder, is she teasing me on purpose? I can't think of why—_

— _I know she's teasing me, she has to be, with that smirk, there's nothing else that can—_

— _but the Brotherhood had underestimated the versatility of the traditional wandless magic of the local tribes, and were unprepared for their counteroffensive, beginning in 937, a series of hit and fade strikes all along the Baltic—_

Charissa finally managed to wrench herself away from the flood of thoughts, coming back to herself to find she was sitting mostly upright, back hunched and breath heavy, shaking fingers clutched around her head. And bloody _fuck_ did her head hurt, like someone had poured white-hot lightning into her skull, blinding her and deafening her, her mouth and nose filled with blood and ozone, and she could barely breathe, breathing just made it _worse_ , sharp crackles of agony running down her neck with even the slightest motion. She desperately tried to control herself, helped along by the somewhat distant feeling of embarrassment raised by the tears she felt already leaking from her eyes, but it fucking _hurt_ , and it wasn't getting better.

Because she'd only pulled partly away, she could feel that. Enough she could think, she was conscious, but not enough she couldn't feel Hermione's mind battering against hers, sending her jerking and twitching away, but she _couldn't escape_ , it was _always there_ , and there was _too much_ , it _fucking hurt_.

'Charissa?' She could barely hear Hermione's voice over the rushing in her ears, sounds from Hermione's memories slipping in the way, but she could hear the confusion and concern on her voice anyway. No, not hear it, she knew, she could _feel it_ , but it wasn't _hers_ , she _knew_ it wasn't hers, but it was _inside of her_ , and she _couldn't get it out_. 'Charissa, what's wrong?'

'I can't stop...' It was only as she paused, trying to think of how to explain what was happening, still desperately trying to shield herself against Hermione's mind, her pathetic occlumency nowhere near potent enough to isolate herself, that she realised what was happening.

She was using legilimency. She was reading Hermione's mind. But she hadn't meant to. She hadn't even known she _could_. And now she couldn't _stop_ , she couldn't make it—

— _cringe from the light, and Mum immediately slides the curtain back, clicking her tongue to herself, the sound echoing in her head like raucous bells. 'I'm sorry, baby, there's nothing to do but wait until it goes away. I can—'_

— _honestly, I don't think I mind it when she teases me so much—_

— _expected the greatest organised resistance to come from the previously pacified peoples at the centre of the continents. But European and Asian enforcers did not think to send eyes to the nations ensconced in the great forests in both the south and the north—_

— _is she_ _ **bleeding**_ _? There's no way that's good, what could even, no, blood pressure, maybe, hypertensive epistaxis, from that headache she obviously has, that could lead to ruptures in the fine capillaries in the nasal mucosa and—_

— _god, this girl is so weird, does she have any idea how crazy she sounds? Or does she just not care? I don't think I'd be able to sit there with that_ _ **ridiculous**_ _thing in my hair and just—_

Charissa jerked away from Hermione's hands, but she doubted it would make any difference, she couldn't stop it, she couldn't—

— _and Charissa just smirks, 'I'm perfectly willing to do your fighting for you.' And how am I supposed to respond to_ _ **that**_ _? Just look away, try to ignore—_

— _there's so much blood, it's all over her, leaking from the charred, shredded hole in her shoulder in deep rivulets, smeared all over her chest and arm. Charissa's awake, but barely, her voice all slurred and she can barely meet the Healers' eyes, and, there's_ _ **so much blood**_ _, she must be under some sort of numbing charm that really has to, oh no, she could have_ _ **died**_ _, I can't, I_ _ **can't**_ _, I can't be here, I—_

— _what do no think, Hermione, you idiot, get her to Pomfrey, no, er, get her dressing gown first, right, not like levitating your naked girlfriend down the halls while she's bleeding from the face would attract attention_ _ **at all**_ _, stupid—_

With the little part of her that could still think with her own thoughts, Charissa jerked around even as she came to a decision, grabbing Hermione's wrist before she could get up. 'No,' she hissed through clenched teeth, the white in her head flaring with the effort, her throat shaking and her stomach heaving. 'Stun me first.'

Against a backdrop of textbook pages describing various incapacitating magics, every single time Hermione had witnessed one cast flashing behind her eyes with accompanying bursts of agony, Hermione said, 'I don't– Are you sure that's a good—?'

' _Do it!'_ She could hear in Hermione's head how pathetic and desperate she sounded, she could feel Hermione's terror, but she shoved it off as best she could, tried to keep thinking. 'Tell Pomfrey...a containment— No, an isolation field. Do it. Please.'

The white only ravaged her mind for a couple moments more, broken here and there with memories and feelings she knew were not hers, when she felt a hot, steely determination fall over Hermione's mind, the familiar magic of a stunning hex rising a few seconds later, and everything disappeared into blackness.

* * *

 _You seem to have this strange impression, Severus Snape, that I'm_ _asking_ _. You will do it.  
_ — _L_

 _This isn't how I was planning on spending my time, you realise.  
_ — _S_

 _That sounds like your problem.  
_ — _L_

 _Sometimes, I find I truly do hate you, Lily Evans.  
_ — _S_

 _Liar.  
_ — _L_

 _There is no possible way for me to respond to that and retain my dignity.  
_ — _S_

 _Dignity? This is_ _me_ _. I haven't taken you seriously since we were nine and I figured out I could turn your hair pink whenever I wanted.  
_ — _L_

 _Of course. Now, if you'll excuse me, I suppose I should go update your little hellspawn on the details of your latest coercive meddling.  
_ — _S_

 _Have fun. Do give her a kiss from me.  
_ — _L_

 _No.  
_ — _S_

 _I know you won't, but I'm going to pretend you will anyway. The mental image amuses me.  
_ — _L_

 _I'll be going now. Feel free to continue mocking me in my absence.  
_ — _S_

 _I think I'm tapped out at the moment.  
_ — _L_

 _I am not convinced that is possible. I have learned from experience that your capacity for petty cruelty is seemingly limitless.  
_ — _S_

 _Aw, Sev, still such a charmer. I'm astounded Vector hasn't yet folded under your delicate affections. Inhuman, honestly.  
_ — _L_

 _I take it from the lack of response you've now made your_ _dignified_ _escape. Normally I would make a comment about how adorable you are when you're shy, but instead I'll just wish you luck. Have fun.  
_ — _L_

* * *

When she again woke up, Charissa took a long moment simply wallowing in relief. The white agony in her head was completely gone. Good. If she had to deal with that _ever_ again, it would be far too soon.

It took her far too long to realise she wasn't alone. Considering who that was sitting at the side of her bed, patiently waiting, that was _especially_ strange. Flitwick was one of the more powerful mages in the castle. Severus and McGonagall were both close, and only Dumbledore was noticeably above them. It'd been obvious even before the weirdness going on the last couple weeks, clouds of fluttering, crackling, singing energy floating around them wherever they went. They all hid it rather well, so it was never overwhelming or even really distracting, but it was always there. Most of the time, if she closed her eyes and concentrated, she could sense them well enough to point in their general direction, from anywhere in the castle. That she hadn't felt a _thing_ from Flitwick when he was sitting so close...

Well, Pomfrey must have put up that isolation ward. Good. Very few things worked with mind magic.

Smiling down at her in that way Flitwick had, the warmth in his eyes moderating the glint of pointed goblin teeth, he said, 'Awake now, Miss Potter?'

Charissa nodded, pushed herself up to sitting against the headboard. Which took more effort than it should, must have somehow worn herself out more than she'd expected. 'Was there something I could help you with, Professor?'

'A few things, nothing too serious.' He shrugged, his smile turning slightly sharper, a familiar brightness in his eyes. 'I've been meaning to get a moment for a few days now, but we both seem to be very busy people. Since I had to make rules involving the use of mind magic by Hogwarts students clear anyway, this seemed a good opportunity.'

She shifted in place a bit, breaking eye contact with an uncomfortable shrug. 'I didn't mean to. With Hermione, I mean. It just kind of...' She shrugged again. Not sure how to explain it really. It'd just...happened.

'Oh, you're not in trouble for this incident today, Miss Potter. When a legilimens is first coming into their power, such mishaps are not uncommon. Expected, even. Besides, Miss Granger did not even notice your intrusion, and Master Snape assures me her mind is undamaged. No harm done.'

Oh. Well. Good. It hadn't occurred to her, since she'd been the one in pain and Hermione seemingly unaffected, but it would have been terrifyingly easy for her to hurt Hermione rather badly. Drive her permanently insane badly. Sloppy mind magic could do things like that. Mum had mentioned before that Severus, back when they'd been in third year, had gone through a few months where he'd avoided people as much as possible, to the point he'd skipped classes on especially bad days, concerned he would lash out without meaning to and irreversibly harm someone. So. She was a bit retrospectively relieved, then.

Wait a second. She hadn't just accidentally done a bit of mind magic? She was actually a legilimens? She considered asking Flitwick if he was really sure, but if Severus had checked Hermione, he'd probably examined Charissa quick too, and he could almost certainly tell. Huh. With the things she'd been sensing lately, she guessed it wasn't that much of a surprise. She just hadn't expected it, was all.

And Flitwick was still talking, speaking over her thoughts. 'And that is generally the position we take, when it comes to students like you. It is inevitable that you will find yourself, unintentionally or impulsively, peeking into others' heads. Until you develop greater control, there is no real way to stop it. As long as you do not use these new abilities of yours to harm anyone, and do not use whatever illicit knowledge you may glean to torment or coerce, we will take no action. In fact, we may find ourselves defending you from your classmates — very rarely do people react well to being stuck in close proximity to a known legilimens, especially one undisciplined. Master Snape himself had some difficulty because of it, as I recall.'

For a few seconds, Charissa just blinked to herself, things she hadn't understood before reorienting and falling into place. _That_ was why Dad and his friends had never gotten along with Severus, at least partially. Some of it had just been Gryffindor–Slytherin rivalry, certainly, and some because of Mum, yes — Charissa had learned Mum's choice of friends in general, not just Severus, had been a point of some bitterness with most of her housemates — but the legilimency stuff certainly didn't make it easier. She couldn't imagine Dad and Sirius had been at all happy to learn one of their least favourite people could read their thoughts and emotions, and even tweak them a bit to his will, whenever he felt like it. They'd certainly worked on their occlumency to defend themselves, but it'd still probably just made them hate him even more. And it did explain that persistent suspicion they always had for anything involving him — an unscrupulous legilimens _could_ bend events and people to their desires, with some luck and more skill — and why they'd never developed the same enmity for Mum's other friends from Slytherin and Ravenclaw. Alright, then, that made sense. 'I understand, Professor. I'll be careful.'

'I know you will, Miss Potter. I simply had to inform you. And as long as I have you here,' Flitwick said, his smile turning slightly crooked, 'I might as well touch those few other things I had building up. One involves the duelling club. The junior division team's performance at the winter tournament was, hmm, lacklustre at best, shall we say. They are considering dropping one or two members before summer rolls around, if they can find people willing to fill the spots. However, since nobody in the junior team is graduating this year, they didn't think to evaluate potential applicants the way they normally would. When Miss Bell came to me with the problem, you were the first person I thought of. If you're interested, that is.'

'Of course I'm interested, Professor.' When she'd realised there weren't any seventh years in the junior division team, and nobody on the list had shown any interest in quitting before graduation, she'd resigned herself to not getting into the team until fifth or sixth year. Or perhaps skipping straight to the senior division team, that was a possibility, however unlikely. But still. Rather lucky a couple people had performed so badly the team was considering kicking them out. That hardly ever happened. Then she had a thought. 'You said they were considering dropping two?'

' _Maybe_ two,' he clarified with a nod. 'They are certainly dropping Miss Jones — in fact, Miss Bell has already informed her of the decision — but they are also considering dropping Mister Gaunt.'

Caelestis Gaunt, Charissa knew he meant, the twins' older brother. Actually, the same one who had challenged Neville at a club meeting back in second year. And somehow managed to lose. Which made the thought she was having even better. 'I was just thinking if they wanted two, sir, Neville Longbottom would be an option. He's not bad, even beat Gaunt in our first year in the club — you might remember that.' By the crooked smirk on Flitwick's face, he definitely did. 'We're rather good in doubles, too, so, it's a thought.'

'Not a bad one. I'll talk to Miss Bell about it, see what she thinks.' Which shouldn't go badly. Charissa duelled Bell in club meetings semi-regularly, she would know how good she was. She would almost certainly be in the junior division team by the end of the week; Charissa found it quite impossible to keep a grin off her face. 'So, that's two topics down, two to go. This one involves your relationship with Miss Granger.'

She blinked at him for a second. To be completely honest, she couldn't see how that was his business. 'Is there a problem, sir?'

'No, no,' he said, giving one hand a dismissive flip. 'I haven't gotten any complaints or anything, if that's what you're wondering about. Which is quite unusual, to be frank, given that you two are sharing a room with Miss MacDougal — in similar situations, I have almost always heard from the one in her position by now.'

Charissa shrugged. 'Hermione is shy. We're careful.'

Flitwick looked vaguely uncomfortable all of a sudden. 'Yes, well, not my business, honestly, but I had a thought, in the interest of preventing any future problems. Hogwarts is a very interesting place, you see — the floorplan in many areas can change at a moment's notice, to fit the needs of the time and place. The six girls of your year are split three to a room, yes, but there is no reason it _must_ be that way.'

He couldn't possibly be... 'What are you suggesting, Professor?'

'I'm suggesting I use my authority as head of house to request the tower give your year three rooms instead, suited for two students each. I suspect your yearmates wouldn't mind — it would mean more space and privacy, and less noise and distractions, which, with your OWL year coming up, I suspect they would all leap at. I'd make a similar offer to the other years as well, of course, to deflect potential accusations of favouritism.' The way he said it, the hint of irony on his voice, implied any such accusations wouldn't be entirely without merit. Not that Charissa was necessarily surprised. It was common knowledge Flitwick favoured duelling club members, enough she'd even heard some people joined entirely to get on his good side. And she did know Flitwick especially liked Hermione. Ever since second year, he'd been meeting with her every once in a while outside of class, according to Hermione just talking magic theory, occasionally lending her a book. Of course, Hermione being Hermione, she hadn't even noticed his treatment of her was unusual until Charissa had pointed it out, only a couple months ago. That was just something Flitwick did occasionally, picking out exceptionally talented students for extra attention. Mum had been one, which Charissa guessed could be another point for her. So, the thought that he might favour them a little wasn't a surprising one.

And there that grin was pulling at her lips again. 'I'm assuming Hermione and I would get one.'

His smile tilting into a smirk, Flitwick said, 'Well, I'm sure no matter what I _tried_ to do, you girls would rearrange yourselves however you saw fit. Even if I had a mind to intervene — which, since neither of your parents have expressed to me any disapproval, I can't see how it's my business — I'm not confident I could separate you successfully. That's the difficulty dealing with Ravenclaws, you know, far too clever sometimes. Unless, of course, you would _rather_ —'

'No, that's perfectly fine with me, Professor.' Then a thought occurred to her, and she completely failed to hold back a wince. 'Might want to ask Hermione what she thinks about it first, though.'

'I was going to bring it up with your year together. I'm only talking to you about it alone because I suspect you might not be leaving the Hospital Wing for a couple nights, and right now happens to be a good time to take care of this, for reasons related to my own schedule. So, last thing I need to talk to you about.' The smile faded somewhat, still there but noticeably diminished. 'We've started making arrangements for next year, and I've found myself with something of a dilemma.'

'Erm...' It only took Charissa a couple seconds to reason out what Flitwick was talking about. When she did, she frowned at him a bit, quite suddenly more confused than she'd been this entire conversation. 'Ah, I'm pretty sure you want Hermione for prefect, Professor.'

'Quick on the uptake, as always. To some, Miss Granger would be the obvious choice, yes. If academic excellence were the only consideration, I wouldn't have to think about it twice. But it isn't.' A noticeably sad cast contaminating his smile, Flitwick shrugged. 'It is a leadership position, Miss Potter. A minor one, yes, but that is still the essence of it. It requires a certain amount of, shall we say, putting up with other people's problems. Those of younger students especially. And not only that, but for a prefect to be effective, they must be the sort of person who can deal with misbehaving students with enough confidence and authority they might actually listen — so far as rambunctious teenagers are capable, that is.

'As much as I may claim impartiality in public,' he said, a sideways quirk touching his lips, 'Miss Granger is one of my favourite students. I'm sure you've realised that by now. But I simply don't think she can do it. If I make her prefect, and she is thus forced to try, I am certain she will be miserable.'

Charissa looked away, turning to frown at the sheets of the hospital bed over her legs. Now that she thought about it...

She'd never really considered this sort of thing before. But, thinking about it, Hermione was really not...socially...well? She didn't know how to say it. She didn't think Hermione ever talked to anyone who wasn't a professor, one of Charissa's closer family members, or someone she'd befriended first. And even then, she mostly only did when Charissa was also there. A few exceptions — apparently, she talked to Luna semi-regularly — but, as far as Charissa knew, when she wasn't around Hermione mostly just sat reading by herself. And even when Charissa was around, she tended to ignore any conversational topic that didn't interest her — which, honestly, was most of them — to the extent she would sometimes put up a silencing around herself so she could read undisturbed.

Not that Charissa thought she was all that much better herself. At least as far as genuine interest went. She didn't think she cared about the stupid shite normal people cared about any more than Hermione did, wasn't any more interested in hearing them babble on about the boring shite normal people talked about. The difference was Charissa was much better at faking it. Mostly because, she thought, she'd been taught to. Before starting at Hogwarts, she couldn't count the lessons in stupid nonsense she'd gotten, mostly from her grandmother and Lady Longbottom. She'd been forced to learn how to deal with people. She didn't like it, she didn't understand what other people got out of it most of the time, and she certainly didn't care about all that nonsense. But she could handle it, like following the steps of a dance in her head. Formally, anyway. Private relationships were harder, too messy and unpredictable, but public ones she could do just fine. But Hermione couldn't do any of that. She'd never been trained to as Charissa had.

And Flitwick's point about misbehaving students, well. She couldn't imagine Hermione would know how to handle anything like that. And she doubted anyone would listen to her. She didn't have the right sort of...presence, she guessed? She didn't think anyone would take Hermione seriously in that sort of situation, was the problem. The only reason she ever let Hermione tell her what to do was because she actually cared one way or the other what Hermione thought of her. She could count on her fingers the other people who did. And she doubted Hermione had the force of personality necessary to move people who didn't.

And Flitwick was right. With how obsessive Hermione could be about doing everything she attempted correctly, being a prefect, but then quickly realising she really wasn't that great at it... She would be miserable. She would be completely miserable.

Yeah. Come to think of it, Hermione would be a really terrible choice for prefect. 'You may have a point there, Professor.'

Flitwick gave an amused snort, shaking his head to himself. 'So glad you agree, Miss Potter. But, then, that leads me to my problem. Because, you and I may both realise Miss Granger would not be suited to the role at all. But I'm not sure she does. We've never spoken of it, but I would not be surprised if she expects to get it. I'm not entirely sure how she'll react when she doesn't. And, because Miss Granger is one of my favourites, I don't want to cause her any more grief than I have to. The problem is, I worry my first choice might.' And he cocked his head, staring over at her.

It was obvious what Flitwick was implying. She'd have to be a complete idiot not to get it. For a couple seconds she just blinked at him, trying to put words to what she was thinking. 'Ah, I don't think you want me either, Professor.'

He frowned back at her, looking distinctly confused. 'Don't I? Why not?'

'I don't...' Charissa shrugged, crossed her arms over her stomach. Not sure why she'd had the urge to do that, she just did it. 'I'm sure you noticed, Professor, but I don't exactly have the best reputation. I'm worried it'd be bad for our house's image.'

And that just made Flitwick more confused, the lowering of his brow over his deep-set eyes sharpening the goblin resemblance. 'Miss Potter, _what_ in Myrðin's name are you talking about?'

Erm? She thought that was quite obvious, really. How many vilifying articles in the _Prophet_ had there been about her now? A few. She saw the looks some people gave her — even bloody _Dumbledore_ gave her distrustful, calculating glances. And Dad was _very_ not happy with her about it. He hadn't said much about it, but she could tell. So. Really thought it was obvious. 'Well, I don't know. I rather thought people, you know, don't like me.'

Flitwick's frown contorted, one eyebrow raising. 'What gave you that idea?'

'Er...'

His face turning somewhat severe, 'I don't have to go have a talk with your father, do I?'

'No, I just...' Charissa shrugged. She had absolutely no idea what was going on anymore.

Flitwick let out a long sigh, rubbing at the side of his forehead with a hand. 'The thing about _reputations_ , Miss Potter, is that the tenor of them is dependent on the views held by individuals. Yes, it is being blathered around quite a bit that you will very likely turn out to be an exceptionally powerful dark witch. Yes, _some_ people are not pleased about that. Many of those people are influential — Dumbledore's people do control the government at the moment. But _some_ is not _all_. You forget, the ruling coalition makes up only, what, two-fifths of the Wizengamot? and only maybe two-thirds of those Houses are technically Light? It is _they_ who are displeased by the sort of woman you are becoming, four-fifteenths of the Lords of the Wizengamot. And that is only the Lords, and only the Noble Houses. You'll find popular opinion concerning you among most anyone else is far more favourable.

'Tell me, Miss Potter, how would you describe your political opinions?'

Charissa blinked at the sudden change of topic. It didn't help that she'd already been disoriented — she really hadn't thought of it all that way. Which was pretty obvious when she thought about it. She could still be an idiot sometimes, apparently. 'Ah, I don't know, sir. I've never really thought about it that much.'

'Well, think about it quick. The problem certain people have with you should become very obvious.'

Erm... If she were to put words to what she felt about the sort of things people talked about, the issues she'd heard her father mention the Wizengamot had debated, she'd say she was...what was the word? Permissive, maybe. She thought she was far more permissive than Dad and many of his allies seemed to be. For the most part, if nobody was being hurt, nobody taken advantage of, she really didn't see what business it was of anyone else's what anyone got up to.

The principle applied to a lot of things she'd noticed over the years she disagreed with her father about. The Light were constantly passing all sorts of laws restricting freedoms for...well, any being who wasn't human, essentially. Some regulations were more reasonable than others, but there was always something. Dad was good on werewolves specifically but, then, with Remus as a close friend, he would be. Charissa knew his opinions weren't so kind to other beings. Personally, she didn't see how those regulations made any sense. It would be like restricting her movements, policing her every action, just because she was a Parselmouth — there were even people in the Light, she knew, who would actually support passing such a law. She didn't get it. If other magical beings or creatures weren't doing anything to harm anyone, what point was there in meddling with them? She was more inclined to leave them alone. If they commit a crime, punish them the same as any human. She didn't see how other precautions were necessary.

She had similar thoughts concerning laws about magic. All these complicated rules about which magics people were allowed to learn, under what conditions they were allowed to learn them. It was just silly, to her. Especially since many restricted arts weren't any more dangerous than spells taught to every Hogwarts student. Far as she could tell from personal experience and observation, and even according to a few books she had read, that whole thing about "dark magic corruption" some people talked about didn't exist. There were subtle emotional effects associated with being acclimated, as Mum put it, to either black or white magic, but they were slight, and didn't progress the way the mythical corruption was said to. If someone used, say, blood magic to harm or coerce someone then, yes, there should be punishment for that. But she didn't understand why there had to be _additional_ punishment for _how_ they'd done it. Or if someone used blood magic to, she didn't know, ward their house, enchant something harmless for personal use, tracking charms, whatever, she didn't understand why that should be illegal on its own, when no one was being hurt. She didn't get it. She'd never heard of a single law restricting any sort of magic that had ever made any sense to her at all.

Of course, she thought she had a broader idea of what counted as harm than some people might. She wasn't convinced the way British law functioned was necessarily ideal, as an example. It didn't particularly affect her, since her father ruled their House with a rather light hand. Shite, he was so passive of a Lord Charissa sometimes entirely forgot her aunt even existed — she really had nothing to do with the rest of them, Dad very consciously didn't interfere with her life. But not everyone was as lucky as she was. She could imagine just how much she would despise being essentially enslaved to whoever happened to be the head of her House.

Hermione had been somewhat surprised that she, the future Lady of a Noble House, hadn't any issue with what Emma was trying to accomplish with her House Cherwell antics. To be completely honest, Charissa couldn't understand why a rational person would.

But that did make it sort of obvious. Permissiveness on creature–being law, permissiveness on the regulation of magic. The particulars on her thoughts about British law and economics might be a bit unusual, but the underlying concept of self-determination, that every person should be able to choose and act for themselves without being dictated to by any outside force, the general idea fit. She didn't think she'd ever put it in quite these terms before, but it was obvious. 'I'm rather Dark, I suppose. Ideologically, I mean.'

And Flitwick just smiled at her, the glimmer of pointed teeth making the expression almost predatory. 'Exactly. That is _exactly_ the problem many people have. You see, you are the future Lady Potter. With the way inheritance in your House works — and I did check, out of curiosity — there is nothing your father can do, short of expelling you, to change that. And it is becoming very obvious to many how your views fall. House Potter is aligned with the Light, and has been for generations. But the other Light Houses see you, see what you are becoming, and are realising they are about to lose a House to the Dark, that their coalition will be weaker by one voice. And they are not pleased.

'The Dark, on the other hand, from what I've been hearing, is growing increasingly ecstatic to have you. With how powerful you're turning out, both magically and in force of personality...' Flitwick shrugged. 'Forty years from now, if you wished, you could easily be _leading_ the Dark. And they would follow.'

That... Okay, she had _definitely_ never put it in those terms before. Now that she thought about it, it did make a lot of sense. That "bad reputation" she had, that her father was so displeased about... Looking at the individual things that _made_ that reputation, and... Well, they were mostly things the Dark liked. And there were _more_ Dark Houses than there were Light — just, more Houses that weren't technically either, which made up a plurality, had allied with Dumbledore's faction, so the Light was in power at the moment. So, what she'd thought was a _bad_ reputation might actually be a _good_ reputation, if she thought of it in terms of raw numbers of people and what they thought. 'That's just Noble Houses, though. And just in Britain.'

Flitwick gave another shrug. 'As far as public opinion in foreign countries go, the only people who know who you are generally do because of your mother. Lily is internationally famous, due to her defeat of Éjbevissza, so many will be inclined to think well of you by association. They don't think about these things the same way we do but, in British political terms, most other nations would be Dark. A bit of the same going on in Britain too — many people in Noble Houses may not like your mother very much, but she's regarded far more favourably by everyone else, and opinion among Common Houses tends to be more heavily weighted to the Dark than the Light. I suppose we'll have to wait to see how the fallout from the Second Task turns out, but I wouldn't anticipate anything bad. And, well, your relationship with Miss Granger will, in all likelihood, improve your image outside the Noble Houses. She is the Mistress of House Cherwell, after all, no matter that her mother is acting as regent. Emma Granger is already making quite a name for herself, and within the Common Houses that will only help you.'

'I...' For long seconds, Charissa could just stare at Flitwick. There was far too much going on in her head today. And she'd barely even been awake for an hour total. This was ridiculous. 'Are you saying...that people, I don't know...'

With a repeat of that slightly-vicious grin of his, Flitwick said, 'You don't notice how people watch you at all, do you?'

No. Apparently she didn't.

'Well. I suspect, once you get this mind magic of yours under control, it'll be far more obvious. But, for the moment, suffice it to say you are not thought of nearly so negatively as you believe. It will not at all reflect poorly on Ravenclaw to have you as one of our prefects. In fact, in two years time, I anticipate I will be trying to convince the Headmaster to make you Head Girl. No promises on that, by the way.' His smile dimmed, eyes turning away, a darkly annoyed cast falling over his face. 'That man can be quite irrationally persistent in his prejudices. He's impossible to argue with when he's already convinced he's right.'

Flitwick walked out a couple moments later, leaving her alone with her jumbled thoughts.

But she wasn't alone for very long. It'd barely been a couple minutes before, with the familiar low snap of fluttering cloth, Severus stormed into the room with his usual moody sharpness. Then he was standing over her, just staring at her. She really couldn't think of what to say, so she just stared back — she wasn't entirely sure what he was doing here. To be honest, she'd never really seen that much of Severus at all. In retrospect, she figured he was probably uncomfortable with children, so had been trying to avoid her, growing up. Not that Severus seemed comfortable with anyone, come to think of it...

After a long moment of staring at her, Severus reached into his pocket, dropped something onto the sheets over her legs. Picking it up, she saw it was a little metal thing, silver or something similar, no wider than her finger and only a fraction the length, curved into what sort of looked like a clip. She thought there might be runes on it, but they were so tiny she couldn't read them. 'That goes onto the back of your ear,' Severus said, in his usual hoarse voice that always implied to Charissa he didn't use it enough. 'It well prevent any use of mind magic on or by you. However, you will find magic in general far more difficult. I suggest you use it whenever you are having trouble concentrating, and have no particular need to be casting anything. And you may find you will need it to sleep for some months.'

'Oh.' Charissa blinked at him for a second. Then she reached up, after a bit of fumbling around found a spot a little back from the top of her ear where the little thing seemed to slip right into place. Though she couldn't feel it because of the field itself, that wave of Severus's hand was probably dismissing the isolation she was in. The next instant she felt the enchantment kick in. Which was...strange. Like a smothering blanket, pressed flush against her skin, wrapped tightly enough she could barely move. She shifted in place a little, just to convince herself she still could. It wasn't pleasant. But she'd rather deal with this for the rest of her life than have a single one of those episodes ever again. And it wouldn't be forever, just until she got better at controlling herself, so it was fine. She glanced back up at Severus, hesitated over what exactly she should call him, before once again settling on polite. 'Thank you, Master Snape.'

'If you haven't already guessed,' Severus said, settling into the chair Flitwick had just vacated with obvious reluctance, 'your mother has turned to me to teach you mind magic. She would do it herself, but she is not as talented as I am. The process also requires I see quite a bit of your mind. As I understand it, she was concerned you might not be comfortable with your mother poking around in your memories.'

Charissa frowned, couldn't stop herself from asking, 'Why?' If she was going to have _someone_ in her head either way, she thought she'd rather it be Mum than anyone else.

For some reason, Severus seemed confused by her confusion. He blinked at her a couple times, then brushed it aside with a shallow shrug. 'Regardless. As you can imagine, your mother was quite persistent that I teach you. She did not give me much choice in the matter. I am complying, but not without protest. I am telling you this, because I am sure you are no more pleased with the arrangement than I am. You need not pretend otherwise.'

She thought about that for a second, and said the first thing that occurred to her. 'I don't think I mind, actually.'

It could be her imagination. But, just for a second, an instant before he managed to get control of it again, she thought she saw a flash of surprise cross his face.

* * *

 _March 6th, 1995_

* * *

Hermione looked weird. Well, more weird than normal.

Not that "look" was exactly appropriate. It was just the verb other people used when talking about Luna's abilities, and she supposed it wasn't _too_ inaccurate, so she just never corrected them. And used the word herself, for convenience. But, when she thought about it, even in ordinary speech most words weren't used in ways that were denotative, or at least not precisely. Words were used in twisty, indirect ways all the time, convenience practised enough everyone being convenient was mutually intelligible. So, really, that she would use a word for something in a way that wasn't precisely accurate like that wasn't so much outside the usual, but almost—

Hmm, right, she was thinking something, pay attention.

Anyway, from the first time she'd met Hermione she'd thought she was somewhat unusual. Standing next to her felt like spreading herself out on the ground under a warm summer rain. Little drops of water pittering and pattering against her in a thick and heavy sheet, so many and so quickly she couldn't distinguish any individual one, the air around Hermione bright and colourful with far too much life to be contained in one body, floating tendrils of magic and memory chirping in some indistinguishable song.

Some of that was normal for a sorceress, yes — or a potential sorceress, anyway. Some of it was weird, though. The rain was a bit thicker than she thought it should be, the song more energetic, the harmony consisting of more voices than she would expect. There was a weird texture to her mind. Luna couldn't say what, exactly. It just felt slightly...off. Like examining a flower she knew _should_ have only six petals, and noticing after a few moments there were ten instead.

And Hermione's threads had always been interesting. She'd known just with a glance Hermione would be her best friend in time. For most of their lives, it looked like. There was something about the texture of the threads connecting the two of them that she still couldn't make out perfectly — no matter how many times, pretending to be reading, she'd sat there just listening to the melody ringing from them — but they were many enough and dense enough and pleasant enough she knew it to be so. Actually, glancing between the two of them, comparing the threads between Jas and herself and Hermione and herself, feeling out the shivering of history and destiny as best she could, she thought Hermione might be replacing Jas as her best friend pretty soon. It was impossible to guess with much precision, and the echoes from that blood alchemy ritual Jas would be undergoing this summer was distorting it, but she thought definitely within a year.

Which had always been very confusing. She'd known at first glance, through cheating Seer powers, they'd eventually be very close. But it'd only taken a couple minutes actually talking to her for her to realise Hermione _really_ didn't like her. Which had just been so very confusing. The initial dislike Hermione had had for her was much less now, true, but she still didn't like her very much. At least, she didn't think so? But she knew, not too far into the future, she would. And Luna had no idea what could change between then and now for that to happen. She didn't get it.

And Hermione was looking weirder than usual. As she walked through the library, her steps feeling a bit hesitant and distracted, the wisps of light and song were drawn close against her, orbiting tight about her mind, as though she were thinking about something with such great intensity the outside world had temporarily ceased to exist, the usual rain that followed her everywhere abnormally heavy and thick, but concentrated in a single spot, the green-smelling wind focused. And by the way the vortex was tugging at the threads binding her to Luna, she figured somehow in those thoughts. Not sure why, could only be peripherally.

At a guess, Hermione was tracking her down to ask her about something. She did do that, occasionally. With as much time as she'd spent around Mummy, rather esoteric magic theory had seeped into her head, so sometimes Hermione had weird questions only she had answers to. Supposedly. That's what Hermione said, anyway, that only she had good answers to some things. Which was weird, because she didn't see how she could possibly know better than Professor Flitwick. Maybe he just wasn't available sometimes? He was a professor, he had things to do.

She noticed something in her peripheral vision, glanced that way quick to look more closely. And frowned. The threads binding her to Jas, sitting next to her, were shuddering in time with those tugs pulling at the threads binding her to Hermione. And the way they twitched, shards of poison digging along their flesh, preemptively shriveling...

Huh. She'd known something was eventually going to happen to weaken the threads between her and Jas. She'd seen the inevitable traces of disharmonic interference here and there, little hints of destiny giving her unspecific warnings. Apparently, it was going to happen now. This conversation Hermione was about to start, something was going to come up that Jas wouldn't like, and Luna would say something bad, and they wouldn't be as good of friends anymore. That was as specific as she could get, but she knew it was going to happen.

She'd always known _something_ was going to happen eventually. It looked like eventually was now. She couldn't help feeling a bit sad about that.

For a moment, she considered fleeing, or perhaps getting up and intercepting Hermione before she got here, pulling her somewhere else to talk, somewhere Jas wouldn't be. But she knew that would be pointless. If it didn't happen now, it would happen later. Time was like that. She only saw it happening because the event sent ripples out through the currents of magic — and the event had to happen for those ripples to exist, for her to see it. Which meant that, yes, she could delay it. Or, more correctly, do something that _seemed_ like delaying it. But all that would mean was it wasn't _actually_ supposed to happen now anyway, that she'd misinterpreted the immediacy of what she was seeing, that it would always have happened later. There was no stopping it from happening. From a certain point of view, it had already happened. There was no changing destiny.

Mummy had still died, after all.

As Hermione got a bit nearer, approaching their table in the back of the library, Luna slipped her foot forward, pushed out the chair next to Ginevra at the other side of the table. 'Did you have something you wanted to ask me about, Hermione?' She consciously didn't use the nickname a lot of people did these days. She knew Hermione would rather they didn't.

Hermione let out a little snort as she pulled the chair out a little further, heavily sinking into it. 'Is it that obvious?'

'Pattern recognition,' Luna said, absently waving at the anxious swirl of colour and song orbiting Hermione's head. She set her Transfiguration text down, folding it closed around her half-finished essay. 'You don't need to be so uncomfortable about it, though. I'm sure whatever it is won't bother me.'

Hermione made a face at that — which made Jas laugh. 'You get used to her doing that. Just assume Dove knows what you're feeling every moment of every day. It's what I do.'

She couldn't help smiling at that a little. It was true, of course. Well, mostly true — sometimes she saw and felt things she didn't understand, but for the most part. She just liked not having to hide it. She'd used to, when she'd been younger, or at least tried to. It had always made Ginevra uncomfortable. In fact, it _still_ made Ginevra uncomfortable, judging by the way her fiery mind gave an unpleasant twitch at Jas's comment. But Jas, Gwyneira, Charissa, Neville, Bella...their whole duelling team, actually...they didn't mind at all. It was so much easier not having to pretend to be a normal person.

In a low grumble, Hermione said, 'Just always going and reading my mind.' Though it was said all petulant and grumbly, Luna knew she was joking. The rain was too warm and soft for her to not be, her song bouncing and teasing.

'Mm, still can't read your mind. You want Charissa for that.'

Hermione flinched, but only slightly. Well, her body flinched slightly, it was more obvious in her magic, a hard, fearful twitch. But it was quickly done. Probably not yet used to the idea of her girlfriend being a legilimens. Luna could see how that might take some adjustment. 'Yeah, I guess. But she's sort of unavailable right now.'

For a second, Luna thought to herself Charissa was probably off screwing someone else again. But, no, that wasn't fair. And also definitely not true — she'd been with Master Snape almost constantly the last couple days, getting her head ordered enough she could stand to be around other people without getting a headache again. It just really bothered her, how Charissa wasn't telling Hermione what (or, more precisely, who) she was doing. Bothered her enough that nasty part of her she usually ignored couldn't help but make a comment. But it really wasn't her business. Really didn't know why she took it so personally sometimes.

'But it isn't anything too serious,' Hermione was saying. 'Well, somewhat awkward, I guess. There was just something I didn't understand, and I was wondering if you could clarify.'

Luna nodded — she'd guessed that much. 'Go head.'

The rhythm of rain against her skin stuttered slightly, the light about Hermione jerking in a nauseous twist. 'I've been reading this book, you see. Baumgarten's _Fundamentals_.'

'Mm, heard of that one. Haven't read it myself.' It was on her to-read list, though, just hadn't gotten to it yet. It was an arithmantic analysis of the human mind and the mechanics of casting magic, written by a famous Nineteenth Century spellcrafter. Mummy had a copy in the original German. 'Was there a problem?'

'Well, okay, see. I was looking at it in the first place because I was wondering how mind magic worked.' Luna had sort of guessed that — the timing was suggestive. 'The mind parts made perfect sense. Actually,' she said a little lower, 'I was surprised by just how much sense it made. It sounded a lot like neural electrophysiology, but with magical fields instead of electromagnetic.'

'That's pretty much exactly what it is.' At least, assuming Luna was interpreting what "electrophysiology" meant correctly. She wasn't sure she'd ever heard the word before, but it wasn't hard to guess from context.

Hermione smiled a bit, a giddy musical thrum shivering in the air. 'Yeah. But, see, there was something that was bothering me, a contradiction. The accepted theory is that we are purely material beings, that something in the mechanics of our bodies simply generates low-intensity magical fields. We do channel magic from elsewhere, yes, but we have no, how do I put it, no spectral existence, no spiritual consciousness, beyond the ambient magics our physical bodies produce.'

Okay. Luna cut a quick glance at Gwyneira, on Jas's other side, but she didn't seem to have any better idea what Hermione was getting at than Luna did. Jas just seemed more confused than anything, but he was never great with the more abstract concepts anyway. Ginevra, of course, had already stopped paying attention. 'Yes, that's correct.'

'But I've also read and heard people say how we have souls, multiple times.'

'Yes.'

'How is that not a contradiction?'

Luna blinked. 'How _is_ it a contradiction?'

Her confusion seemed to make Hermione more confused. Which she guessed just made sense. Confusion was confusing, after all. 'Erm, well, that's pretty obvious, isn't it?'

Before Luna could think of what to say, Gwyneira muttered, 'Oh, oh, I get it.' She shrugged when Luna turned to glance at her. 'Think classical Kemetic metaphysics.'

' _Oooohhhh_.' Luna frowned for a moment, humming a fifth above the fundamental frequency of the hiss from an enchantment in the table, trying to order her thoughts in a coherent explaining-things shape. Which was not a form they regularly took, so it wasn't easy. 'Okay. So, I think the source of your confusion is that you are attributing meaning to the word "soul" that we don't intend in using it. When spellcrafters and theoreticians use the word "soul" we are referring to the neurospectral machinery involved in the casting of magic. There is a physical, neurological component, and also a set of interacting magical fields, together calling and forming and directing magic from wherever it is it comes from. The spectral component is continually generated by the neurological component. If the brain is not functioning, a person's soul disperses, along with the rest of their mind and magic.'

'But...' Hermione was biting her lip, frowning, air still thrumming in a way that told Luna the issue wasn't quite resolved yet, but she wasn't paying too much attention to it. Discordant, shuddering waves from her side were distracting her. What was— 'I thought mages believed in an afterlife, though.'

That statement was enough of a surprise Luna was distracted from her distraction, turning to blink at Hermione. 'What gave you that idea?'

'Erm...' Hermione just stared at her, magic still swirling and flashing in an uncomfortable storm.

And Luna suddenly knew. She wasn't sure _how_ she knew. But she was rather accustomed by now to knowing things without knowing how. She just did that sometimes. Really, people like her should be called Knowers, not Seers. 'You've read the Headmaster's book, haven't you?'

Hermione glanced to the side for a second, eyes yanked at by Gwyneira's snort of derision, before turning back to admit, 'Yes, I did. Back in first year.'

If Luna asked, she was sure Hermione could tell her the exact date she'd read it, exactly where she'd been when she'd read it. She could probably even recite the entire thing from memory, even though she'd only read it once, three years ago. Hermione's memory was really interesting, Luna had always wondered how that worked. Not that she was particularly interested in hearing this particular book recited. She'd tried reading it herself, hadn't been able to get through it. A bit preachy, really. 'Hmm, probably shouldn't have listened to him. The Headmaster is a genius, but he's an alchemist. Not his field. Mages don't believe in an afterlife.'

'You don't?'

Luna blinked, turning to Jas. He seemed not to like that idea. The jittering and bouncing in his head was chaotic enough she couldn't pick it out exactly, but he definitely wasn't happy. 'No. Well,' she said, shrugging, 'some people do, I suppose. There are people like the Headmaster, though fewer than he seems to think. A few, mostly muggleborns or children of muggleborns, follow religions you probably know. A small number of people, mostly in other countries, have preserved really old belief systems that have been around forever. But, for the most part, no.'

'Oh, okay.' Hermione nodded to herself, and Luna was slightly surprised by how easily the storm about her was loosening. 'That makes sense, never mind.' Well. That was easy. Whoo? _Wwwhhhooooooo?_

She blinked at the feel of doubtful eyes on her, turned back to Jas. Who was staring at her. An odd sort of feel about him, he said, 'I don't know why you would want to live like that.'

Hmm. That was a confusing thing to say. 'It's not about wanting, really.' Luna could feel the confusion fluttering off of him. 'Well, see, it's just the way things are. Yes, it is scary to think our existence is but a blink in eternity, that one day I will cease to be. It would be better for it to not be true. Even a less-than-perfect existence would be nicer than no existence at all. But I know what is true, and there is no point in lying to myself about it.'

'You seem very sure.'

Luna shrugged. 'All empirical evidence collected by mages over thousands of years suggests a person's mind and magic dissipate on their death, losing cohesion and melting away. There is no evidence, none at all, that some part of us is preserved after death. Should someone prove otherwise, I'll be the first to get up on the Ravenclaw table in the Great Hall and dance in celebration. But—'

She broke off when Hermione failed to choke back a giggle. She glanced her way to find Hermione's light ringing with amusement, the hand over her mouth not quite hiding her smile. 'If you do plan on ever doing that, tell me first. Don't think I'd want to miss it.'

Luna smiled back at her, feeling all too warm and bright. Well, if Hermione wanted to watch her dance, all she had to do was—

She stopped putting energy into the thought, watched it putter along a bit before falling apart and dying. Cocking her head a bit to the side, she frowned to herself. Where had _that_ come from? Huh. It did explain a lot, but she somehow hadn't put together until this very moment she liked Hermione like that. Her head could be confusing even for herself sometimes, but. Weird.

She had absolutely no idea how to feel about that. Whoo? Was "whoo" an appropriate response? Hmm...

Before refocusing on the conversation she was supposed to be participating in right now, she carefully added this topic to the list of things she didn't talk to Daddy about. She could imagine the rant about adolickies he would go on well enough, she didn't need to hear it in real life.

Ginevra was saying something about how Hermione only thought that because she hadn't seen Luna dance before. Luna would admit, she was sort of strange. That one was intentional strangeness, though. She _could_ dance like a normal person if she wanted to, but why would she want to? Normal people dances were boring. That, and she did have trouble keeping in time with the music, too — recorded music was mostly okay, but live music she suspected she heard completely different than everyone else. It didn't seem to match. The performers' emotions interfering with what she was hearing, she assumed, though she'd never had the opportunity to confirm it.

How would she confirm that, even? Hmm... She could record the performance, then compare it against what she remembered as best she could. Oh, oh, she could have some staff paper on hand, and write out the bits that stuck out to her while listening to it performed, then compare _that_ against the recording, see if the same—

'How are you so sure, though?' Luna blinked at the question from Jas. Not so much the question, really, or even his tone of voice, but more the feelings pulsing off of him in discordant waves. She couldn't put her finger on exactly what that was. If she were to try to put words to the hot, queasy feeling, the melodic disharmony of his thoughts, she'd say...some combination of pique and pity? She wasn't sure. 'I mean, absence of proof isn't proof of absence.'

'Mm, true.' Luna cocked her head a bit to the side, consciously forcing her face flat, her voice smooth and gentle. She could tell Jas was _not_ happy with this subject, for reasons she honestly didn't entirely understand, and maybe being nice about it would make a difference. She doubted it, but she could always hope. 'But as far as I can tell, most beliefs involving the afterlife are invented entirely _a priori_ , with no evidence at all. Absence of proof isn't proof of presence either. And while I could almost see the uninformed persisting in some nonspecific belief about the afterlife, most people who do believe in such a thing have very _specific_ beliefs about what they think the afterlife is like. Which are all things they could not possibly know, obviously myths, stories built on no facts. Absence of proof may not be proof of absence, true, but it is definitely suggestive of it.'

'I don't know,' Jas said with an oddly tight shrug. 'It just seems like a rather absolutist stance you're taking, with little justification for it. I mean, sure, you can say there is no specific evidence for it as much as you like, but without any direct observation—'

'Jas.' She felt the sharp jerk of surprise from him, little clangings of concern from Gwyneira and Ginevra and Hermione. Oh. That must have come out a little harder than she'd meant it to. She was a little annoyed, all of a sudden, but she'd been trying not to be, and apparently she hadn't been doing as well as she'd thought. She took a moment to take in and out a long breath, fighting against the tension and heat in her own chest that had sprouted out of nowhere, forcing it down. 'I'm sorry, Jas, but you really, really don't want to say that to me.'

Luna didn't have to look to know the annoyance flaring in his head, know he was opening his mouth to say something. Probably something annoying. So she cut him off before he could. 'I know. I was being oblique about it, talking just about things that are in the academic record, because _how_ I know isn't exactly fair. It's one of those Seer things, you see. But I know.'

For a moment, there was a heavy, uncomfortable silence. But she could feel it rising in Hermione's head, that insatiable curiosity of hers. Luna couldn't help smiling a little. Hermione asked simply, 'How?'

Forcing her voice as level and calm as possible, Luna answered. 'I was there, when Mummy died. In the room. I saw it. I watched as the magic of her mind and soul weakened, gradually lost cohesion. As it diffused, dispersed, until all it was was magic, no different from any other, and everything that made it _her_ was gone.' Luna shrugged. 'Would I _like_ to think she still exists somewhere, in some form? Yes. Is the idea that I might get to see her again someday, somehow, a pleasant one? Yes. But I know she isn't, and I won't. I know she's gone forever, because I watched it happen.'

By the feel of them, nobody at the table had any clue what to say to that.

Luna knew it was going to happen before it did. She closed her eyes, feeling the waves of hurt, and pity, and confusion, and annoyance crash against her again and again, as Jas got to his feet and walked away. Honestly, Luna still wasn't sure what was bothering him. Which she guessed only made sense, since the shredding in the colourful threads of song binding them implied Luna wasn't ever going to be able to completely fix it. If she understood what the problem was, she'd be able to fix it. She didn't get it. Which was annoying, but she guessed that was just the way it was.

After a couple seconds, Gwyneira let out a long sigh, an air of aggravated affection about her. 'Well. I guess I should go smooth over my boyfriend's ego here.'

'What do you mean?'

Even though her eyes were still closed, she still knew Gwyneira had shrugged. 'You were kind of calling him an idiot for a little bit there.'

'Oh.' She frowned to herself. Had she? She hadn't realised. 'I didn't mean to.'

'I know. I'd be annoyed with you if it were on purpose.' Luna almost smiled at that — Gwyneira did have a habit of clarifying things like that, it was nice. 'See you later.' And she was gone. After a moment of hesitation, Ginevra got up and left. It didn't feel like Ginevra was following her, though. At a guess, she simply didn't want to be left alone with Luna and Hermione.

'I'm sorry,' Hermione muttered once she was gone. It was hard to hear it through the discordant clanging of nauseating guilt swirling about her, but Luna didn't actually have to to know what she was thinking.

She considered asking what Hermione was sorry about, but she didn't really have to. And Hermione would know she didn't really have to, so might take walking through the conversation the normal person way condescending. Or, come to think of it, that might be something normal people would be able to pick up from context. Honestly, Luna had trouble keeping straight the sort of things normal people could figure out. 'It's okay. I didn't know exactly what was coming, but I did know there would be something, and Jas wouldn't like it. And I know you didn't do it on purpose. Actually, you couldn't have known what I did, so you _couldn't_ have done it on purpose. So it's fine.'

The song and light about Hermione had gone rather tightly focused again. She was pretty sure Hermione was thinking about something, sitting there just staring at Luna. Her eyes were still closed, so she couldn't see the staring part, but that was the feeling she got. Which made her a little uncomfortable, kind of an odd squishiness. Which was weird. She wasn't squishy like this very often. She managed not to shift in her chair with some effort. Which was weird. She wasn't the fidgety type.

Finally, she opened her eyes, to see Hermione was staring at her. Kinda blankly, like she wasn't actually looking at Luna, more intensely focused on her thoughts while her eyes just happened to be pointed in her direction. 'Hmm?'

'I was just thinking...' Hermione's eyes snapped back to reality, her mind loosening again with a sad smile. 'Your Seer stuff, and now Charissa's legilimency. I always focus on how uncomfortable I am with the thought that you're digging around in my head constantly, and there's nothing I can do about it. But it hardly ever occurs to me that it can't be fun for you all the time. I'm sure I would See things all the time I would rather not know. I have no idea how I would react to knowing that something bad was going to happen and I couldn't stop it. I don't think I'd want to be like you, either of you.'

Luna hummed, inserting herself somewhere in the middle of the harmony washing off Hermione's mind. Was it a bad thing, being able to hear the Song? She wasn't convinced it was. She'd always been like this, so it was the only way of being she really knew. But if she had to say one way or the other... She thought she liked knowing things for what they truly were. Things and people. It did mean she knew things that were unpleasant, yes, that she would perhaps be happier not knowing. But it also meant she knew things that were pleasant, that she was happier knowing.

She liked being able to see the threads binding people to her, to see explicit evidence that people cared for her. She only had to look, and all the proof she wanted was floating around them, warm and bright and gently singing. Other people didn't have that. Far as she could tell, they had to guess, had to extrapolate what someone thought or felt from the way they acted, the things they said. Had to trust that they weren't lying. But Luna always knew when someone was lying. And she always knew how they felt about her. She could hear it from their minds directly. And she liked that.

That might be a big thing she liked, but it wasn't the only one. She still wore Mummy's old necklace pretty much always. Even though it'd been years since Mummy had last touched it, it had once been hers for more years still, had been made by her, so it retained a faint echo of her, Luna could almost hear the familiar song of her mind if she concentrated, dancing through her chest with warmth and life and love. If Luna weren't what she was, she wouldn't have that either.

But, to be a normal person, without the Song washing off of people's minds, without the constant embrace of magic surrounding her, without the threads binding everyone and everything, without those wondrous shivers of history and destiny... To not _know_...

'I don't mind,' she said eventually. To Hermione's somewhat odd look, she shrugged. 'It's not fun all the time, true. But I would rather know than have to guess. It's rather nice, being certain. I don't think other people have that the way I do. If I could choose, make myself normal, I don't think I would.'

Hermione thought about that. After a short moment, Luna was somewhat disoriented when the air around Hermione suddenly rang with clean, clear fifths and sevenths, bright and powerful. She blinked at it for a second, but she figured it out quick enough. It sounded like Hermione wouldn't choose to be normal either.

Luna couldn't help smiling at the thought.

* * *

[hence the Greek roots literally meaning "quick birth"] — _In case you're wondering, Hermione is randomly thinking about oxytocin. From_ _ὀξῠ́ς and τόκος, meaning "quick/sharp" and "childbirth" respectively._

[Where's the fun in that?] — _Line pulled from chapter 20_

[the Brotherhood...local tribes] — _For anyone wondering, these are respectively an alliance of Nordic Dark Lords and a few Finno–Ugric peoples (modern day Finns, Estonians, Karelians, Saami, etc). The Brotherhood feature prominently in my headcanon history of the Hogwarts Founders, actually, though they four had nothing to do with the stuff in the Baltic._

[previously pacified peoples at the centre of the continents] — _This little passage is referring to the outbreak of a short war over the Statute of Secrecy, more or less Native Americans against virtually everybody else. The Statute still happened, obviously, but the Americans did manage to expel the European and Asian invaders. There are a few enclaves here and there — European culture has a foothold roughly comprising the NYC metro area, a few places on the west coast home to unique cultures with mixed American, Asian, and European influences — but for the most part magical America is dominated by Native cultures in my headcanon. As an example, where I live (Minneapolis) would be right about at the border between the Lakȟóta (or "Sioux") and the Anishinābēg (or "Chippewa"). The muggleborn population is representative of the irl demographics, of course, but they assimilate, as muggleborns everywhere do — the sequel to TRW actually involves an American muggleborn, and her magic friends are all Anishinābēg. The "previously pacified peoples" mentioned are mostly the Mēxihcah and the Maya, in case you're wondering._

[I'm perfectly willing to do your fighting for you.] — _Chapter 20 again_

[leaking from the charred, shredded hole] — _Wound from Charissa's lost singles match, mentioned in chapter 25._

[since neither of your parents have expressed to me any disapproval, I can't see how it's my business] — _It's been mentioned before, repeatedly, that views on sexuality in magical Britain are vastly different than in real life. Or even from what JKR has said, really, but I ignore Word of God all the time. With how irreligious they are, it's sort of inevitable. What Flitwick directly hints at here is basically Hogwarts policy. In almost any boarding school, and especially one giving the students as much freedom as canon implies, it is inevitable there's going to be sex going on all over the place. As long as the students involved keep it to themselves, and nobody is being taken advantage of, the staff generally just shrug and go on their way. In cases where one or both sets of parents have expressed their disapproval, and have requested the staff intervene, they sort of have to_ _ **try**_ _. But they do so knowing that it's almost impossible to keep a couple apart if they are persistent enough, so even then they don't make any promises. Teenagers are gonna fuck, it happens._

[Charissa sometimes entirely forgot her aunt even existed] — _For the record, e_ _arlier statements of the number of people in House Potter not including James's half-sister Elizabeth, who has never married and is still a Potter, were intentional. This is not a retcon. Charissa has hardly ever met her, no one ever talks about her, so she sometimes forgets her aunt exists, and since she's never mentioned her Hermione doesn't know about her. Not to say there are no retcons in this story at all, as I do occasionally change things, but this one was on purpose._

* * *

 _Late, I know, sorry. My brain has been 1000% not agreeing with me lately. I'm gonna keep trying, but we'll just have to see how it goes._

 _No, I don't think Luna believing there is no afterlife is out of character, for one important reason. In canon, Luna believes there is, and she is factually correct. I've made worldbuilding changes, which include there no longer being an afterlife. And Luna is still factually correct. Oh, and, if you're thinking there was a reference to **Princess of the Blacks** by Silently Watches slipped in that scene, you're not going crazy, that was on purpose._

 _I've rambled more than long enough. Until next time,  
~Wings_


	30. Fourth Year — Vicarious

_March 18th, 1995_

* * *

'Do not let yourself get distracted,' Severus said, his voice low, flat, barely above a whisper. 'Focus on the present moment not exclusively, but don't let yourself be drawn away either.'

Charissa tried not to be too annoyed. That was far easier said than done.

Mind magic was far more simple than she'd expected, but also far more difficult. A person's mind, in the magically relevant sense, was an energy field produced by the constant activity of neurons in a person's brain. Since everyone's brain was shaped very slightly differently, every mind had a distinct fundamental frequency, as Severus had called it. Minds were exceptionally noisy, actually, but the fundamental frequency was the one that mattered. A legilimens was a person whose brain, for whatever reason, produced a magical field that was voluntarily modular — that is, they could change the fundamental frequency of their own mind at will. Adopting the same fundamental frequency a nearby mind caused the legilimens's mind to reverberate in harmony the other, allowing them to experience the thoughts, memories, and emotions of another person.

But see, that was the trick. It was far too easy to let the other person's mind take over entirely, to _become_ the other person for all intents and purposes, until the legilimens's own consciousness reasserted itself. That was essentially what had happened to her with Hermione. Charissa's whole mind had been in harmony with Hermione's, out of her control. It was entirely possible Charissa could have lost her sense of self completely, drowning in Hermione's thoughts and memories — if it hadn't hurt so much.

That wasn't something that was supposed to happen. Severus had told her a while ago, when he'd been checking her for damage he'd noticed Hermione's mind was unusual. He suspected she had done something to herself through accidental magic when she had been very young, though he wasn't sure exactly what. Perhaps she had forgotten something, back when she'd been a toddler, something very important, and it had made her very distressed, so her nascent magic had instinctively changed her, made it so she would never forget anything ever again. Hermione was significantly more powerful than average — Severus said that, if part of her magic weren't constantly occupied maintaining her altered mind, she'd be even more powerful — and magically powerful children doing that sort of thing, something that would be all but impossible for experts to replicate on purpose, was not unheard of. Exceptionally rare, but not unique. Charissa had been in such pain because there was simply _too much_ going on in Hermione's head for Charissa's mind to hold it all. It had prevented her getting lost completely, but had hurt terribly in the process.

The trick, the trick Severus was trying to teach her, was to get only _part_ of her mind to slip into resonance with only _part_ of someone else's. That way, she could still know what they were thinking and feeling, scan through whatever memories happened to be primed at the moment, but still be fully conscious herself. Apparently, stopping her mind from doing it at all was all but impossible, it was instinctive, so they weren't bothering. Once she had it down, she wouldn't need to wear that thing on her ear all the time anymore, which was motivation enough on its own — it just felt wrong, like she was half-suffocated all the time, she _hated_ it. And while the idea _seemed_ simple theoretically, it was enormously difficult to actually do.

'Take it off and try again,' Severus said once he was done taking a sip from his cup of water, settling back into his chair. 'Keep hold of yourself, but keep yourself open. Go.'

For a moment, Charissa didn't move, just took a few long, slow breaths, trying to stop her own thoughts from bouncing all over the place. She'd never really been aware of it before, but it was really hard to stop now that she was. According to Severus, it was just something brains did without prompting. Always processing new information, or reviewing and correlating old memories, all the time. A person may not be aware of it, but opening one's eyes and seeing, say, a chair, the brain immediately calls to mind a whole mess of memories that are somehow chair-related, along logic that doesn't always make sense, or perhaps things that are a similar colour, or have a similar visual texture, or vaguely the same shape, or associated in some other, unpredictable way.

In some ways, the brain's tendency to do that was actually an advantage to a legilimens. They could only see memories that were "primed", the word Severus used, so if that wasn't something everyone was doing all the time passive mind magic would be _far_ less useful. But it made properly concentrating exceedingly bloody difficult.

Once she thought she had herself more or less composed, Charissa reached up, slipped the little metal clip off her ear. While that thing didn't completely sever her from her magic, it was still a bit disorientating that first moment, power rushing back into her in a brilliant wave of song so intense it made her slightly dizzy. And she could already feel a part of herself shifting, moving. It was hard to put into words exactly — this wasn't something the English language was designed to express. A sensation of turning, of opening, of focusing. And then, dimly, shadows across her eyes and whispers in her ears, Severus's memories drifted into her.

Because it wasn't just the student whose mind got poked around in a bit by the master. To learn properly, it had to go both ways. Since Severus had far and away greater control of himself than she did, he was able to restrict what she saw to what she assumed he considered the least sensitive, but she thought that was at least part of why he'd been so reluctant to do this in the first place.

It was a precarious balancing act, trying to focus on Severus's mind well enough she could understand what was going on, but not let herself get sucked in too far, fall out of her own identity. She couldn't even count how many times she'd lost herself, getting so absorbed in Severus's memories it was difficult to remember she was someone else entirely, it wasn't 1968 anymore. But she'd been practising for days now, and it was getting easier. Not _easy_ , not by any stretch of the imagination, but easier.

When the memory came into greater focus, she quickly recognised her mother. Most of the memories Severus let her see were of Mum, mostly practising magic, or talking about all sorts of things, a couple of them both just reading silently. She guessed because they were comparatively innocuous, and it was entirely possible just being in her presence was priming many of them anyway, so they were convenient.

There hadn't been anything she'd seen from Severus that had been exactly new — she'd known since she'd been very young that he had been Mum's best friend for most of their lives, enough she'd always wondered why he was never around. Now she knew enough to assume it had something to do with how much he and her father _really_ didn't get along. It didn't help that she got the feeling he didn't care for children.

The first memory that came to her wasn't that unusual, however exceptional someone else might find it. They were nine, she thought, somewhere around there. Severus had nicked his mother's wand, and they were in a patch of trees somewhere practising spells out of a ratty old book. A basic severing charm, she recognised it instantly. Severus got it to work before too long, but his mother's wand didn't seem to be agreeing with Mum, sending her into a pout. (It was sort of odd seeing her nine-year-old mother pout, but Charissa had seen enough of Severus's memories by now she was mostly used to it.) Then Mum frowned for a moment, told Severus to do it again, and firmly grabbed his wand arm by the wrist. Giving her a slightly odd look, he did as she asked anyway, cutting a narrow furrow in a random tree.

After about ten seconds of contemplation, Mum let go, closed her eyes, then slashed her empty hand sharply through the air. And jumped, letting out a high yelp of shock, when the tree split open with a sharp crack. Both Mum and Severus watched, dumbfounded, as the wounded tree teetered for a moment, then fell ponderously to the ground.

Charissa was of two minds about that memory. On the one hand, she couldn't help smiling to herself a little bit — she didn't know why, but just how absurdly talented her mother was tended to make her feel a bit smug. But on the other, she felt slightly annoyed Mum hadn't taught her wandless magic growing up. She was probably going to be getting intensive lessons in it over the summer, yes, but that still put her years behind.

She realised how absurd that statement was. Complaining about being years behind her mother was a bit silly, considering Mum had been able to do things as a child most mages couldn't as adults. But not really, because while Mum was far more powerful than the average mage, Charissa was even more so. In fact, she suspected she'd been more powerful than Mum had been at her age even before the Blessing, but there was no way to—

Charissa flinched as Severus's mind against hers jerked and twisted, the memories of her mother pulling away from her, Severus refocusing somewhat. She could feel him doing it, could feel him latch on to the idea of the Blessing, follow it along the association to the Fae, skipping around a few times before finding the memory of Fleur telling her about it. He was so _fast_. She theoretically knew how to do that, though she was pretty terrible at it, but she could barely even think coherently as quickly as he could follow a thought through a person's mind, it was dizzying. She had no idea how he did it. Even if she'd wanted to direct him away from the memory, she doubted she would have been able to — it hadn't occurred to consider if she was comfortable with him knowing, but she simply didn't have time to decide now. He was just too fast.

Not that she was especially surprised. After all, he was considered a master of mind magic for a reason.

And then Severus was withdrawing from her, the sensation rather like nails drawing slowly against her skin — in the painful way, not the fun way — she couldn't help shuddering a little, and the part of her mind that had been focusing on Severus's was suddenly filled with an odd, empty vibrating. That was his occlumency, she knew, which she'd quickly decided was unpleasant, the thrumming reaching through her bones and grinding in her teeth, making her twitch. But it was still better than blocking her magic off with the clip again, so she did her best to ignore it. Severus sprung to his feet, and was soon pacing, back and forth in a short circuit in the tiny room, his characteristically shabby robes giving a sharp snap each time he spun on his heel.

For a few moments, Charissa could only watch in something not entirely unlike fascination. She didn't think she'd ever seen him lose composure like this before. It was weird. His narrow, almost emaciated face was all severe, his sudden anxiety intense enough there were traces of it on his expression. His paces weren't with the usual smooth confidence he had — though, a cold sort of confidence, granted, as though he simply didn't care about anything going on around him, so it couldn't touch him — instead looking slightly jittery, oddly unsteady. It was the weirdest thing.

She got the feeling he knew what the Blessing was, without having to be told about it directly by a Fae like she had. Not that she was really surprised — she'd expect someone so much more thoroughly educated than herself to know something that supposedly important.

After what felt like minutes, Severus came to a sudden stop, staring moodily at the ground. 'I don't suppose you've heard anything since.'

It took Charissa a second to follow the logic leading to the question. 'You mean, do I know which clan Blessed me? No. To be honest, I think I'd rather it stay that way.' Severus turned to give her a flat, curious look over his shoulder. 'I'm not interested in submitting myself for all eternity to some unknown family of absurdly powerful space aliens, thank you.'

It could be her imagination, but she thought she saw the very corners of Severus's mouth twitch with suppressed amusement. Just a little, barely noticeable, but there. 'No, I don't expect you would be. And your mother hadn't any thoughts? The Aurors track Fae activity in our world as best they can, so I wouldn't be surprised if she could venture a guess.'

'Er.' Charissa shifted in her seat slightly, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. 'I haven't told her.'

Whatever amusement had been hiding just under the surface swiftly vanished. 'You... You carry the Mark of the Ancients — which, you should know, no human has been granted in the entirety of history, so far as we can tell — the consequences of which where concerned are your magical development and, considering you will one day be Lady Potter, the political future of the _entire bloody country_ cannot be anticipated. And you _didn't tell your mother_.' She just shook her head. For long moments, Severus said nothing, his eyes somewhat narrowed, his jaw under his skin shifting subtly, as though grinding his teeth. 'Apparently, I had given you far too much credit. It won't happen again, I assure you.'

Charissa winced — and after she'd already spent hours trying to get him to stop automatically assuming she was an idiot. She scrambled to find something to defend herself with. 'Well, there's nothing she can do to change it, I didn't see much point in telling her.'

His only response to that was to raise one eyebrow a couple centimetres. Yeah, not impressed.

'I just—' Charissa let out a sigh, rubbed at her forehead with both hands. She felt oddly tired all of a sudden. 'I just didn't want to worry her with it. I was going to tell her later.' Assuming she wouldn't talk herself out of it again, anyway. 'It's just, with the divorce, and seemingly everyone already badgering her about remarrying, and things with the Aurors not exactly slowing down... It wasn't until the day she was going to leave for Kemet that I found out about it, and I just didn't want to, I don't know, ruin her holiday, I guess. She worries about me more than enough, it just seemed the worst possible time to add to it. I was going to tell her when she got back.' Probably.

Severus stared at her for long seconds, and not just with his eyes. She felt his mind tugging at hers, which she was slightly taken aback by — his mind was still closed to her, no more than that low throbbing, but apparently he could do both at once. And while she could try to fight him off, she didn't bother, let him see she was (mostly) sincere. Eventually he let out a very short sigh, his eyes tipping up to the ceiling for an instant, said something in a low mutter she couldn't hear very well, but she thought she caught 'Evans women' and 'death of me.'

For some inexplicable reason, she found herself fighting a smirk.

Apparently she wasn't fighting it very well, because by his slightly furrowed brow it was obvious Severus had noticed, but he didn't draw attention to it. 'That was surprisingly considerate of you, Charissa, and I'm having trouble faulting you for it. But you will still tell her, as soon as possible. This is too important for her to be kept ignorant, no matter how benevolent the justification. And yes, she will worry, but such is the burden of parenthood. If she hadn't been willing, she wouldn't have had you in the first place.'

Charissa snorted, shaking her head to herself a little. 'Remind me to delay that as long as possible.' To be completely honest, the idea of eventually marrying and having children, as she knew she one day must, still wasn't particularly appealing. She'd always assumed she'd change her mind as she got older, but it hadn't happened yet. Still seemed to her a lot of fuss she'd rather not deal with.

'Yes, people like you never do make enthusiastic parents, do they.'

She frowned. 'People like me?'

Halfway back to his chair, Severus froze, turning a faintly confused look on her. After a few seconds, he let out another sigh. 'Of course she hasn't told you yet. It would fit the pattern of the day, wouldn't it.'

'Who told me what?'

Severus sunk into his chair across from her, shaking his head to himself. 'When you do inform your mother about the Mark, ask her why she taught you the Rules.'

For a couple seconds, all she could manage was to blink at him. 'You know about that?'

'Obviously,' he said, slight traces of exasperation on his face and voice. 'I did help her formulate them.'

Charissa had absolutely no idea how to respond do that.

* * *

 _I cannot even describe how much you owe me for dealing with this.  
_ — _S_

 _Come now, Sev, she can't be that bad.  
_ — _L_

 _I will admit, she is a gratifyingly attentive student, but that is not what I am talking about. The two of you have both been avoiding telling each other things that should not be kept secret, and here I am, for the second time in one day swallowing my mortification enough to play intermediary between foolish, stubborn children.  
_ — _S_

 _What the hell are you talking about?  
_ — _L_

 _I am talking about the fact that, very soon, you will be getting a letter from your daughter. And you will take it seriously, you will tell her whatever she wants to know, or I will inform her myself. And I am unlikely to be very complimentary about your actions in so doing.  
_ — _S_

 _She knows, doesn't she.  
_ — _L_

 _She suspects. With the minds of ordinary people now open to her, that she will soon figure it out on her own is inevitable. But you shouldn't have let her go on this long without explaining yourself to her. You should have told her years ago.  
_ — _S_

 _I keep delaying. Hoping she'll change, and it'll turn out I was wrong all along. Fearing she won't, and she'll hate me for what I've done to her, and it'll all have been for nothing.  
_ — _L_

 _I know, Lily. You're an idiot like that.  
_ — _S_

 _Why, thanks, Severus. You always make me feel better.  
_ — _L_

 _That is what I'm here for.  
_ — _S_

* * *

 _March 28th, 1995_

* * *

Sitting back in her chair, alone at a table roughly in the center of the Hogwarts library, Charissa closed her eyes and took one last slow, deep breath, letting that calm detachment she was still not that good at summoning settle more firmly over her thoughts. Then, movements slow and measured, she reached up and slipped that blasted clip off of her ear.

Her magic again came crashing over her, thick and bright and hot, but she held back any reflexive reaction, simply watched it pass. Once the waters had stilled again, there was that increasingly familiar sensation of part of her reorienting, focusing. She latched on to no one thought or memory or feeling in particular, and simply let them flow through her, only observed so much as to pick away a few details before again slipping through her fingers. It was oddly relaxing, actually, like sinking into a warm, gently flowing stream, passively feeling the water slide past — if this chair were any less uncomfortable, she'd be in real danger of slipping, losing herself in the flow. As it was, the last bit of trepidation cleared from her own head, the slight tension in her shoulders eased away, and she listened.

She had no idea how long she sat there. It was disconcertingly easy to lose track of time while in other people's minds, disconcerting enough she probably wouldn't have done this of her own volition, or at least not so soon. Severus had practically ordered her to, to give her real practical experience in managing exposure to more than one mind at once, something she would surely need to figure out eventually to function in public again. He had been giving her a somewhat odd look while suggesting it, though, so she was pretty sure he had an ulterior motive. As pathologically organised as his mind was, she hadn't had any clue exactly what.

After some time sitting in the library, absorbing whatever drifted across her, she had a couple guesses.

She wasn't too surprised when the first thoughts she came across were overwhelmingly focused on her, and a bit frightened in tenor. It was Hogwarts policy, laid down a few centuries ago, that if a legilimens were discovered among the student population, the Headmaster publicly announced their identity. Presumably, because people like her were a very real risk to the freedom and sanity of everyone around them who hadn't been trained in defensive mind magics, so ensuring the parents and other students were at least aware wasn't entirely irrational.

The point was, within thirty-six hours of discovering it herself, everyone in the school knew she was a legilimens. It had even been in the _Prophet_ already — they did so enjoy their sensationalist speculation. Which was all annoying, yes, but there wasn't a lot she could do about it.

So, with her sitting in the middle of the library, her eyes closed and removing what was clearly an enchanted object of some sort, even the people who _didn't_ know any mind magic, couldn't feel her touching their thoughts as an embarrassingly few in the room actually could, even they could guess what she was doing. The fear was perfectly understandable. She knew she wouldn't be comfortable with some random person rooting around in her head — she still hadn't forgiven Dumbledore for attempting it a couple years ago. Of course, that situation was slightly different, since Dumbledore wasn't a natural legilimens, had been penetrating her mind with a far more invasive technique, consciously slipping tendrils of his magic into her. Which, she had known even before Severus had explained the difference, carried far greater risks of unintentional harm. And it hurt like hell if the target in any way rejected the assault, which Augí had managed for her. What she was doing wasn't nearly as threatening by comparison. But it was still a violation of space that was generally private, she could understand that, prodding at a vulnerability most people weren't usually aware of.

She could understand it, but she didn't particularly care. If they really wanted to keep her out so badly, it wasn't like they couldn't go study occlumency on their own, or have a relative arrange a tutor. Even muggle Emma Granger had thought to schedule lessons for Hermione almost immediately, which had apparently come as something of a surprise to Hermione herself. If these idiots didn't think it important enough to arrange for their own self-defence, she couldn't see why she should go out of her way to coddle them — if they didn't value their privacy, why should she?

Somewhat to her surprise, though, the fear quickly bled out of most of the minds vibrating against hers. Not all, but most. A group of second-year Gryffindors a few tables over seemed practically frozen with terror, but most everyone else had just gone back to their work. And while they might with varying effectiveness be focusing on their work consciously, just her presence had primed memories. Their memories related to her.

If she hadn't gotten a few hints here and there from a few people, the Gaunt twins especially, if Flitwick hadn't far more directly tried to explain it not long ago, she probably wouldn't have believed it. Even then, it came as a surprise. She hadn't realised.

People noticed her. Quite a lot.

Which, when she thought about it, shouldn't be a surprise. It was a well-documented phenomenon. Even if they weren't trying to, weren't consciously paying attention to it, people could detect powerful concentrations of magic, either in locations or other people. And magic, as every mage knew, felt good. It seeped into their bodies, into their minds, energising and soothing and titillating. The most powerful of mages drew people to them without even trying, moths drawn to fire. Some people instinctively hated such influence, the presence of such a mage making them irritable and suspicious, but there was always an effect of some kind. It wasn't something that could be helped, it just happened around sorcerers.

Charissa always had been exceptionally powerful, even before the Blessing. But now, especially after it had changed her, well. If she understood correctly, given a few years time, she would be the most magically powerful human being in existence. Perhaps a few more to catch up with some of the older immortals, she guessed. Not that power was necessarily everything — she wasn't any more skilled or clever than she'd been a month ago — but the fact remained she was ludicrously powerful.

So, it _shouldn't_ be a surprise. But it still sort of was. She'd never thought about it before. Never really payed enough attention to notice.

People's heads were filled with far more memories of her than she'd expected there to be. Even people she'd literally never spoken to in her entire life. She'd had no idea strangers watched her as much as their memories suggested they did. She'd had no idea people talked about her. The thought was sort of odd, to be honest. How had she missed this? That was a rather embarrassing degree of blindness, she thought.

Odd, but not bad. Renown, flattering or otherwise, was a form of power, after all. She just hadn't realised she had it.

And it did seem surprisingly flattering. She'd had virtually no practice at all identifying emotions associated with whatever memory she was looking at, still something that was new to her, but as far as she could tell. Which was also a bit of a surprise. She'd somehow managed to convince herself most people didn't like her. And, if she was reading things right, people did seem to think she was a bit...stuffy? Was that the word? Something like that. Which wasn't necessarily too bad. It wasn't like she was surrounded by unambiguously adoring eyes or anything, but at least their opinions of her didn't seem to be overwhelmingly negative, not by a longshot.

Even now, she could see someone in the room, while half-heartedly trying to focus on reading, was indulging in a very explicit fantasy that involved taking her against a nearby bookshelf. She was not at all sure how to feel about seeing this, just ended up watching, dumbfounded. This bloke had a _very_ vivid imagination, and while that was a bit odd from his perspective, especially when it came to anatomy they didn't share, it was a bit intriguing, actually. After a moment, she decided she was mildly offended — she would never be as...passive, she guessed was the word, as he was imagining her to be. It didn't bother her much looking on it from his perspective, but even thinking about it from what would be her side for two seconds made her skin crawl.

It took a moment of effort to determine which direction he was sitting in, and she glanced around to memorise his face quick, before closing her eyes and going back to letting thoughts flow over her as they came.

That was her first guess, a potential ulterior motive for Severus to suggest doing this. The other came on more slowly. And while the first she was rather certain was a good thing, the second...well. It was hard to put words to exactly what the problem was.

A Slytherin girl, Charissa wasn't sure who or even her age, had an errant thought involving her mother. It seemed slightly...odd to her, she couldn't say why, so she followed the thought out of curiosity. The association with the girl's mother primed a whole slew of memories, and Charissa swam through them, observing with growing unease.

If Charissa were asked, she would say she loved her mother. In fact, Mum was quite possibly the only person in existence she could say with confidence she did. Maybe Perry, but no one else. And why shouldn't she? Her mother had always been there for her, had always been willing to go out of her way if necessary to provide whatever she needed, had always been open and honest with her, exactly what she needed exactly when she needed it. There was no one in the world she was more comfortable with. She couldn't deny there was some pride attached to the idea of being the daughter of Lily Evans in particular as well, which she thought was perfectly justified. Her mother _was_ one of the youngest sorceresses in the world, after all, was just absurdly talented. She didn't go around bragging about it or anything, of course, but she couldn't help feeling somewhat smug. She owed her mother quite a lot, and would do quite nearly anything she needed of her with very little thought, no complaint. Well, she might complain a little to joke around, or just for appearance's sake, but she wouldn't mean it. Charissa was hers, irrevocably.

She would say she loved her. But she didn't feel for her anything like how this girl felt for hers.

It was hard to put words to, exactly. She didn't know how to explain it. There was a sense of warmth about the girl's memories, of visceral devotion, a familiar one of safety, but at the same time a clinging helplessness that made Charissa recoil. Softly woven into every one of these memories, thin tendrils branching out into places that had nothing to do with her mother at all, seemingly intrinsic to her identity. Deep, and vivid, and powerful. Some aspects of it were familiar, but others, the combination overall...

It was completely alien.

In the next minutes, she picked up others, from other people, thousands of memories from dozens of minds. Memories of siblings, of cousins, of lovers, of friends. And not just people, either! Memories of music, and food, and beds, and clothing, practically anything! All of it filled to bursting with zeal, echoes of a passionate existence she didn't know, bright, and loud, and _overwhelming_. She could barely even process it, too much.

It was all completely alien. She'd never felt any of this before. She hadn't even known feeling like this was _possible_.

Not that she found she was particularly envious. Overwhelming. It was too much. She didn't think she could ever live like these people. Too bright, too passionate, too... It just seemed agonising, exhausting. She didn't know how they could do it. To _want_ it — it was clear from their memories they sought out experiences that would make Charissa cringe.

On the one hand, seeing all this, knowing all this, was like a piece of a puzzle falling into place. She'd always suspected she was different, known she wasn't compelled by the same drives other people were, somehow a kind apart. Now, it was obvious she'd suspected correctly.

She was nothing like these people, in any way that mattered. They made absolutely no sense at all. They might as well be a different species.

Of course, since she'd been Blessed, they technically were.

But, even so, she kept getting pulled back to that girl's memories. She could accept she was different, yes. That she didn't have much problem with, in theory. But, she... If this was what love actually felt like, she...

It felt like a betrayal. Even the simple thought that she didn't actually love her mother at all felt like a betrayal. And if there was a single person on the face of the planet she simply could not tolerate the thought of betraying it was her mother. It felt wrong. Viscerally, agonisingly _wrong_ , some fundamental part of her she wasn't usually aware of rebelling in furious refusal to believe it true.

And it bothered her more and more, as she kept drifting through other people's minds, stumbling on other memories of other loved ones. It wasn't just that girl, it was everyone, everyone except _her_ , and she _couldn't_ —

Charissa grit her teeth, snapped up her hand to slip the enchanted clip back onto her ear. For once, having her magic deadened, that suffocating blanket again descending over her, for once it was a relief. She sighed, slumping back into her chair, rubbing at her suddenly pounding forehead.

She just couldn't take anymore right now. She didn't want to see.

But she was only still for a moment. There was something she needed to do. What she always did, when something didn't make sense, something was wrong, and she needed advice.

Charissa needed to ask her mother.

* * *

 _April 11th, 1995_

* * *

'Shōshen?'

Lily jumped at the unexpected voice coming from just behind and above her, knocking her knee painfully on the bloody low table magical Egyptians insisted on using, her heart jumping hard into her throat. Did he _have_ to do that? She sighed, rubbing her forehead in a vain attempt to fight off a headache. She must have lost track of time. She'd been picking through a reproduction of an archaic magical text on early transfiguration and alchemy theory — the ancient Egyptians hadn't considered them separate disciplines — out of curiosity, and by the pain in her head and the dry tiredness in her eyes and how oddly hungry she was she knew she must have been trying to slog through the forty-six-hundred-year-old hieratic for far longer than she'd intended.

Well, she didn't think she could be blamed for that. She couldn't be reasonably expected to keep a consistent schedule with a library like this one readily available.

Not that the library looked like anything all that special. Like the rest of the temple, it was made of stone, and ridiculously open — most rooms didn't even have proper walls, and the library was no exception. The floor was smooth, multicoloured tile, strewn randomly with delicate wooden tables that barely reached Lily's knee standing up, a thin ceiling of dark, intricately carved slate supported by a few thin, branching columns. No matter how insubstantial the ceiling really was, the columns weren't even _close_ to sturdy enough to hold it, she'd noticed there were runes carved into them, each heavily enchanted. Rather than any solid walls, there were thin, gauzy curtains dangling from the ceiling all over the place, in reds and greens and blues. It was Parmūte now, and the seasonal winds were blowing, but the wards about the city had moderated the hot, sandy storms to a cool, pleasant breeze, playing gently across the room, sending the curtains softly fluttering.

And it didn't look like a library. There were no shelves, no drawers, no obvious storage for documents of any kind. The other students around had various volumes and scrolls set about them, shielded from the wind by enchantments on the tables, but the papers weren't even technically real. They were all conjured. At a few places around the room were little stone plinths, each reaching to about her navel. On the top surface were soft, highly detailed spellglows, forming an interactive catalog that to her looked like it was swiped straight out of a muggle science fiction film. Select something out of the staggeringly large library of available documents, and a perfect copy of the original, stored in a meticulously climate-controlled vault far underground, would be automatically conjured atop the plinth.

The thing wasn't perfect, of course. The interface could use some work — it wasn't quite intuitive, and the library hadn't been indexed very well, so search functions were rather hit and miss. But she still thought that automated conjuration trick was a fascinating piece of magic. She'd found a written draft of the enchantment on the things, and she still hadn't managed to work out how they'd pulled it off.

Surrendering to the reality she'd just have to deal with a headache for right now, she turned to the man trying to get her attention. This was Xūsiẖ, one of the younger students; she thought he was maybe twenty or so, with dark hair, skin, and eyes, and the permanent look of faint amusement all magical Egyptians seemed to have. 'Yes, Xūsiẖ, what is it?'

A more obvious smile touched his lips. She assumed because she'd both remembered and properly pronounced his name — they seemed to like it when she did that. 'There's post for you, in the mail office.'

Oh, well, there almost always was, wasn't there? She did get a lot of letters sometimes, much of which was trash from complete strangers, she generally ignored most of it. But it had been a couple days, so she might as well check. She glanced at the scroll she'd been reading, but holy hell if Menfenic wasn't a pain in the arse to read, she didn't think she'd be coming back to it. So she just vanished the scroll with a wave of her hand, then pushed herself to her feet. 'Who from?' she said, starting to walk toward the wall of curtains. 'Anyone interesting?'

Lazily following her, Xūsiẖ shrugged. 'How should I know? They're all in Roman.'

Lily nodded, not too surprised. He meant the Latin alphabet, which wasn't really used around here at all. It wasn't unusual to find Egyptian mages who could read an absolutely ludicrous number of scripts — everything from hieroglyphs to Coptic, a couple Meroitic scripts, Arabic, Aramaic, Belẽs, Greek... — but people who could read Latin were far more rare. They might be able to guess a letter here or there from similarity, but it was very hit and miss. 'Well, thanks. You can get back to whatever you were doing.'

Shooting her a last smile, a mutter of her Kemeticised name, and he was gone.

Stepping out of the library and into the open air, Lily winced at the assault of midday sunlight against her eyes, quickly reached back to flip her hood over her head. Better. While most everyone else around dressed appropriate to the temperature — for the most part, short trousers and skirts and vests that really didn't cover very much — Lily and the few other pale-skinned people here had to protect themselves from the sun. The first day she'd been here, she hadn't really thought of it. She didn't think she'd ever been this far south before. But after only a couple hours outside she'd had painful burns all over her face and neck and arms, so she'd promptly learned her lesson. Now she went around in a blindingly white full-length robe whenever the sun was out, which she'd gotten a few comments for, which, yes, okay, it was a bit silly, but it was better than nursing sunburns twenty-four-seven. The wards around the city, and another layer around the temple grounds, took the edge off the worst of the heat, so with a couple of careful cooling charms, she usually barely noticed. Leaving the wards was torture, though.

The weather here really was quite ridiculous. Every day was more or less the same as every other day: dizzyingly hot and painfully dry. It was far cooler at night, would almost be tolerable if it weren't so _bloody dry_. She'd known Egypt didn't really have seasons — while other primitive calendars had been designed around changing seasons, the ancient Egyptians had only had the periodic rising and falling of the river to work with — but it was still strange to think it had been winter when she'd gotten here, and it was _supposed_ to be spring now. It didn't seem any different. The winds this time of year got really bad, but the wards took care of that.

Since Egypt was one of the first advanced civilisations in all of human history, it was easy to forget it also happened to be one of the least habitable places on the entire bloody planet. The place was hot enough on some days just going outside was risking heat stroke, she'd gone days straight without seeing a _single_ cloud in the sky. When she'd been getting a tour of the city and, seeing just how open everything was, Lily had asked what they did when it rained, her guide had half-jokingly said she wasn't familiar with the concept — only half because they could go literally years without seeing a single drop. Without the Nile, fed by rains falling far to the south, humanity could never have survived here, and it was still a bit baffling to her anyone had tried.

She was grateful she'd been invited to study here. But she would never choose to actually _live_ here. She couldn't help thinking the locals had to be a little insane to have put up with it for literally thousands of years. A few local immortals had even put up with it for thousands of years _personally_ , which she couldn't fathom. Some of them had even been born before cooling charms had existed! Nuts, just nuts.

It wasn't a long walk to the mail room, between a clump of staff offices — these actually closed in with thin walls of imported wood, garishly painted in bright colours for variety and heavily warded for privacy — and the edge of the main gardens — trees and bushes and grasses dotted with flowers, thick with noisily twittering birds, all things that couldn't possibly live here without a ridiculous volume of alchemised water and carefully-modulated environmental wards. Before long, she was ducking through an archway filled with more gauzy curtains into a little wooden outbuilding, sighing a little at the immediate relief from summer heat, flipped back her hood again. She hated wearing that thing, it irked her cutting off her peripheral vision like that. Stupid bloody sun...

Anyway, before she'd even walked a few steps in, she was met by the familiar middle-aged woman inside — Lily honestly couldn't remember her name, wasn't even entirely sure if she'd ever been told. 'Ah, Shōshen, you again! Popular woman, you are.' Lily didn't really know how to respond to that, not that she had to. The older woman was already scanning across the dozens and dozens of tiny little shelves in the dark room, muttering Lily's name under her breath. That is, Lily, not Shōshen. She wasn't pronouncing it correctly, but it was close enough Lily could tell it was what she was going for.

She'd only been here for a couple hours before people had started calling her Shōshen. She hadn't really seen any point in correcting them. If you're in a foreign land, and the locals start calling you a word in their language that _isn't_ insulting, it's generally best just to run with it.

The woman before long handed her a sizeable stack of envelopes, mostly parchment, bound together with twine. Probably more hopeless fan mail. She sort of got a lot of that, she usually burned it all. Lily sighed, but snapped the twine with a quick slicing charm and started flipping through them, even as she started walking to her rooms, flipping her hood back over her head with a quick charm. The first letter she burned, didn't even bother opening it. The second she burned. The third was from Alice, that one she'd keep. The fourth, fifth, and sixth she also burned. She absently noticed she was getting glances from the few people about at how she was walking around casually incinerating parchment without her wand, but they seemingly shrugged it off, used to her by now. One from the Director — better be important, she was on a goddamn holiday — one from Perry, then another one she burned. Shockingly, one from Linden, hadn't expected that. Another couple she burned. She winced when she saw that letter from Charissa she'd been dreading had arrived. This was going to be fun. She hesitated over a pair of letters from Teri Gaunt and Bríd Ingham before setting them aside with a sigh — probably wouldn't be smart to blow off two influential individuals from two different Ancient Houses simultaneously. Of the rest, she burned six and kept two, one from Emma and another from Perry. Seeing he'd sent her two letters in just a few days, she couldn't help smiling to herself — that boy was just too precious sometimes.

It looked like she had some letter-writing to do.

To her initial surprise, the dorms for students (and most staff) were actually underground. Which did make a kind of sense, she guessed: that was one way to avoid the glaring sun and desert wind, and it wasn't exactly like they had a water table to worry about or anything. The stairs down were shallow and wide, leading to an open-air courtyard a few metres below the surface, trays of vines and flowers fixed to the walls. A few people were standing about chatting, mostly older teenagers — this place really made her feel old sometimes — and she nodded at their greeting, but made sure it was clear by her constant pace she wasn't interested in talking. By some miracle, they tactfully ignored her. Maybe she was just too used to British mages, the whole culture seemed incapable of taking a hint.

Dipping into shade, she walked along a couple tall, vividly-painted corridors, down another flight of stairs, before finally getting to her rooms. She was well aware she'd been given one of the nicer student apartments. In a lot of ways, they'd almost been treating her as more of a visiting dignitary than any other student. They'd even refitted the entire thing, not that, with magic, that was too difficult. There was a room with a few of those silly low sofas and chairs they used, complete with a cabinet stocked with local liquor — she hadn't even checked exactly what, just as a precaution — a fully-functional kitchen she'd barely used, her own bathroom — which was extra silly, considering the bath was _far_ larger than a single person would need — and, for some reason, two bedrooms, both attached to opposite sides of the bath. One had two smaller beds in it, the other a single larger one, all only reaching below her knee. Bloody Egyptians and their inconvenient furniture. She'd inferred from what her guide that first night had said that they'd assumed she'd be having guests a few times, friends or her children, hence the second bedroom. She hadn't really been planning on it, but that was almost overly considerate of them, she guessed.

Hmm, maybe she could ask Charissa and Perry if they were interested, once Hogwarts was out. Neither of them could read any variety of Egyptian, but there were thousands of documents in various Greek dialects, which Charissa could probably struggle through, so the library wouldn't be a total waste for her. And there were other things to do around here. Worth asking.

She hadn't been _told_ these rooms had been specifically refitted for her, only that it'd happened just before she'd arrived. But she was pretty sure. It was the mural in the larger bedroom that made it obvious. The entire place, the walls and ceiling were painted with wildly colourful scenes in a style clearly inspired by ancient art. Most of it was meaningless, just pretty, but the walls in her bedroom were dominated with what she'd quickly decided was a variation on a theme literally thousands of years old: Sēt acting as bodyguard and champion against Apōp during Rē's nightly journey through the underworld. It was similar enough to the far simpler traditional images she'd seen before that she could recognise what it was a reference to, but she was positive it'd been altered into an allegory for her own defeat of Éjbevissza. Sēt was usually depicted male, after all, and she really couldn't remember ever seeing Apōp depicted spitting bolts of black lightning.

She still hadn't decided if that was supposed to be subtle, or if whoever had done it was just trying to be funny.

Lily walked into the room, brought the lights up high enough to read with a glance and a flicker of power, then flopped backward onto her bed. It was far longer of a fall than usual, with the silly low furniture Egyptians used, but the thing was soft enough it didn't really matter. She'd deal with her more formal letters quick, so Bones first. She slit open the letter, floated it in place above her face with a half-conscious levitation charm. Ah, just keeping her updated on events, Bones didn't actually need anything from her. Nothing too particularly interesting, save an unusual spike in Fae magical signatures they were pretty sure marked interdimensional travel. Something to keep an eye on, but nothing had happened yet. All right then.

Steeling herself for another annoying attempt to convince her to marry his airheaded son, Lily next opened the letter from Teri Gaunt. And then felt slightly guilty when it had nothing to do with remarrying. It was rather casual, actually, asking how her studies had been going, wondering if she'd read this or that. Weird. But she guessed she'd never been great at predicting the eccentric Lord, so. With a sigh, she levitated over a sheet of parchment from her desk, a bottle of ink. She didn't bother getting out a quill, instead levitated little strings of ink out of the bottle, pressed and dried them into the parchment a sentence at a time with a deft series of charms. Oh, yes, it was fine, she wasn't an embarrassing novice with shadow magic anymore, though it was as hot as all hell she could mostly avoid it, blah blah. She didn't write with wandless magic like this very often, mostly just because it made people look at her weird, but it was a lot faster.

And besides, she always had hated getting ink on her fingers.

When the letter was done, folded and sealed into an envelope without lifting a finger, Lily reached for the next in the stack. Ingham's letter was a bit shorter than Gaunt's, but she was still left dumbfounded by the end. Lady Ingham was looking for someone to give a few of the younger children of their house some tutoring — mostly non-magical subjects everyone should know before Hogwarts, but a bit of potions and self-defence if possible — and Bríd had gotten permission to bring the offer to Lily. Honestly, this sort of work wasn't something she'd ever looked into, and she hadn't had a lot of time for it with her previous schedule anyway, but she had to wonder if she should consider it. Lady Ingham was offering an absolutely ridiculous amount of money for something that really wouldn't be that difficult. Bit of a time sink, she guessed, but she'd never been too repulsed by the idea of teaching. She'd only ever really taught her own children — a few apprentice Aurors and Hit Wizards here or there as well, that was different — but she didn't mind it. After a moment of dithering, she set the offer aside, resolving to think about it.

Emma wanted to know if she had any advice on whether they should set up group housing for recent and imminent admittees to House Cherwell — most Houses did have a communal family home of some kind, after all — and how exactly they should go about it. Actually, that was an excellent idea, but Emma was going about it entirely wrong. Looking to buy up lots in magical settlements was a bad way to go. Lily started magicking another letter into existence, explaining her idea. Buy on the muggle market a couple acres of land somewhere in the UK, Ireland, or French Brittany, as isolated as possible, though that wasn't a priority. Ward the shite out of the entire property, then build homes and whatever else the growing community needed as needed. Basically, start their own magical town. They wouldn't be close to the first people to do it — various compounds held by one House or another, or alliances of smaller Houses, dotted across the country were little different. People would recognise the idea, and it would be far more convenient to build exactly what they wanted than it would be to purchase something else than alter it to their needs. Besides, with magical travel, it didn't really matter too much where anything was located, so there wasn't much point in dealing with the exorbitant property values universal in established magical communities. The few acres in question needn't necessarily even be contiguous, but that would be easier. And that letter was done.

She considered which to open next for a few seconds before reaching for Linden's. It was very short — Linden had never been much for writing — and left Lily more confused than anything. The content itself wasn't that unexpected, but Lily would never have imagined Linden would write her about it. James was seeing a woman. Hollis, was her name. Linden had suspected since February, but just a bit ago had straight asked his father about it. Linden was asking if she'd known about it, and if she had any particular opinion on how he should handle it. Apparently, he wasn't inclined to make it easy on her, but if she wanted him to be nice or better yet had any ideas for pranks he could try to pull off over the summer, he'd listen. Maybe not obey, his tone made very clear, but definitely listen.

Which Lily hadn't at all expected. She'd both known and not known about Hollis. The younger woman was a Fawley, a cousin of James's friend Devin and a grandchild (great-grandchild?) of his father's first wife's brother. There was an age difference, but not as much as that detail made it sound like — though, she did think Hollis was _barely_ closer in age to Charissa than to James, which was somewhat weird, but oh well. Hollis had featured in James's indiscretions, but she hadn't known they'd started seeing each other legitimately now. She didn't really care. It _had_ bothered her when he'd been screwing Hollis back when they'd still been married, the whole time acting like he couldn't understand what her problem was, that had _especially_ annoyed her. But, well, it really wasn't Lily's business anymore. If Hollis wanted James so badly, she could be her fucking guest.

She honestly just hadn't thought Linden cared about her opinion enough to think to ask about it. She couldn't decide if she should feel guilty for that or not.

After a moment of thought, she wrote an equally short letter — no reason to overwhelm the hyperactive boy, after all — telling him yes, she had known about Hollis, but the whole thing didn't bother her too much. She wouldn't be offended if he wanted to be nice to her, but if he _didn't_... Well, she wouldn't want to _encourage_ him, but if he _happened_ to catch his results on camera, she wouldn't say no to copies. And, in a postscript, did Linden know Hollis was afraid of frogs? Weirdest thing.

Before folding the letter up, she hit it with a last charm, one she'd designed herself. When opened, it would wrap anyone touching it in a tactile feeling of warmth for a few seconds, sort of like a long-distance hug. She used it situationally with a few people, and with every letter to either of her sons.

Not Charissa, though. Her daughter had never much liked hugging.

Alice's letter was interesting news. Apparently, Cassie had been talking about adopting a kid or two recently. Cassie had always been, shall we say, amorous — by which Lily meant she'd been the most cheerful, over-the-top tart she'd ever met until Dora had hit puberty and quickly surpassed her — and had never shown any particular interest in marrying, but evidently didn't seem to mind the thought of going out of her way to become a single mother. Not that Lily ever expected Cassie to make too much sense. She was convinced Lovegood eccentricity was genetic. Alice was apparently looking for help teasing Cassie about it.

Lily burned the letter. She wasn't going to dignify that with a response. Maybe she'd ask Cassie about it later, though.

Perry had sent her two letters, one noticeably thicker than the other, but he had been thoughtful enough to date them, so she opened the older, thicker one first. It was exactly like all his other letters, talking about what he'd been up to since he'd last written, talking about random things he'd read or heard lately that he'd found interesting, bits of gossip about people they both knew, that sort of thing. In one paragraph, his usually precise writing jumbled in a way that implied to Lily he'd gotten a bit excited thinking about it, he talked about how he'd made great progress in his meditations the last couple weeks, to the point he'd even made a few things happen on purpose. Followed by a quick aside about how Charissa had been teaching him the basics of wandless magic over frequent letters for months now, had he forgotten to mention that?

A thought that made her frown a little. No, neither Perry nor Charissa had mentioned that. Charissa _had_ mentioned she was teaching the younger Bellatrix, and that she was having the same trouble Charissa had been having — Lily assumed regular use of a wand tied the concept of active magic use to wands at a subconscious level that was hard to work around, and interfered with free casting. She'd been throwing magic all over the place as a child, before she'd ever even seen a wand, so the potential problem honestly hadn't occurred to her. With how influenced by belief and will magic could be, though, she wasn't surprised magical-raised children would be affected by their experiences of what magic _should_ be like, limiting themselves without even realising they were doing it.

Hmm. In retrospect, she probably should have taught them free casting growing up, as she'd learned it. It would have made things easier for them down the road. Or at least she could have used wandless magic around the house more — it always made mages uncomfortable when she did that, so she'd unfortunately gotten into the habit of avoiding it when other people were around. It'd just never occurred to her, and she'd been so busy much of the time...

Oh well. Too late now.

After a bit of thought, she decided not to intervene. It was possible Perry could hurt himself if he wasn't careful. Or, she didn't know, set the house on fire or something. But, well, there were adults around, adults magically capable enough they'd be able to handle anything that came up. It would probably be fine. She should take a quick reading next time she saw him, though, just to make sure he wasn't doing anything to accidentally hurt himself. Free casting had risks most other magics didn't.

She moved on to his second letter. She could tell immediately, just from his jagged, stuttering hand, that he'd been upset. It only took a couple seconds before she knew why. Perry had found out about Hollis as well. But, since he was still at home and not off at Hogwarts, he had details Linden didn't. Perry was absolutely positive Hollis would be his stepmother before long, at least within a couple years. And he was not happy about it.

Lily had to pause for a moment, considering this new information. She had _not_ expected that. At least, not so soon, and not with Hollis. Of course, she'd been all but certain James would remarry eventually — just look how many people she had after her, and she wasn't even a still-young head of a Noble House as James was. Not surprising. She'd thought he would wait longer before flirting with anything serious, but, after a bit of thought, she guessed that wasn't so surprising either. The official divorce hadn't been that long ago, true, but for a few years now their marriage had been...contentious, she thought was the word. It hadn't been sudden. So it wasn't that unthinkable that James would already be on his feet again, so to speak.

She still thought it was weird he was evidently considering Hollis, though. She was... Well, she was pretty much exactly what you would expect from a good pureblood noblewoman from a Light-minded family. Which is to say, boring. _God_ , that woman was boring. The thought had distracted her back when she'd first found about their on-and-off affair a few years ago, actually. It had been, and still was, strange to think her husband would cheat on her with someone Lily couldn't even imagine sleeping with herself. She was attractive enough, she guessed, but god _damn_ , she was just so _boring_. Just, was it even possible there was a single witch in Britain who was _less_ like herself? It was weird.

She had to wonder. Were his motivations primarily political in considering Hollis...or had they been for Lily herself instead? They were different enough she thought he'd need outside reasons for marrying at least one of them.

Or he was just thinking with his knob but, as much as she might joke otherwise, he really was rather intelligent, she didn't think it likely.

But, Perry's letter, yes. Poor kid was very much not pleased by this. Not that Lily was surprised by that even a little bit. He always had been...oh, what was the word? Well, whatever, the point was, he was angry, and hurt, and frustrated. The letter was mostly just him venting about it. Which she could understand perfectly — she could imagine herself doing much the same in his place.

Of course, if she were Perry, she could also imagine herself being... Well. _Not nice_ to James and Hollis, she'd leave it at that. And with Perry apparently studying wandless magic...

She quite suddenly found herself hoping Perry didn't really take after her as much as it usually seemed he did.

Writing her response was a bit difficult. She wasn't entirely sure what to say. She tried to be as reassuring as possible, talking about how it didn't have to change anything if he didn't want it to, how she would always be here for him, no matter what. And he didn't have to be horrible to Hollis on her account — she wasn't saying he had to be nice either, of course, but if he ended up liking the woman it wouldn't bother her.

Which, honestly, was lying a little bit. Perry was her baby, after all, she was still more than a little annoyed she'd had no chance in hell of getting custody. She truly hated the legal system of magical British sometimes. But it was a lie she _should_ tell and, really, it wasn't that bad, if it happened she'd get over it. Not that she thought that was likely — Perry was such an adorable little mummy's boy.

Of course, if her mother had been as objectively incredible as she knew she was, she guessed she would have been too.

She got gradually less serious as the letter went, teasing him a bit. What, did he think he could get rid of her that easily? Silly boy. What was he so worried about, that Hollis would try to replace her? Now, now, did he really think that airheaded little girl would be even the least bit capable of it? Mm-hmm. Perry would be stuck with Lily for the rest of his life, she wasn't letting him out of her metaphorical sight — she was a paranoid, smothering old biddy like that. He'd just have to learn to live with that, as exhausting as she might be.

 _Et cetera ad nauseum_.

She finished up with layering another of her hug-charms into the parchment, intentionally overpowering it a little — she was nearly certain that would just make it last longer. And then she had the letter folded up and envelope sealed and she was done.

Which meant she just had Charissa's letter left.

Great.

Lily hesitated for a long moment, trying not to be too nervous, before cracking the letter open. It was pretty much exactly what she'd expected: Charissa had figured out on her own she was different. Which really had been inevitable, especially since her legilimency had presented. Sev was probably right, she shouldn't have waited so long. In her defence, she'd had no idea Charissa was going to turn out to be a legilimens — she had always seemed oddly resistant to certain mind-altering magics, in retrospect, but Lily hadn't given it a second thought. But, well, she shouldn't have waited so long anyway. She had already been feeling guilty enough from Sev yelling at her, and this just made it worse. Especially when she read the line, _I'm starting to þink ðere might be someþing seriously wrong wið me._ Yeah. Whoops.

She was just afraid. Because she was an idiot like that sometimes.

Lily released a sigh, let the letter fall against her chest. She shouldn't just write a letter for this. In person would be best, but she hadn't quite extended her range that far, and it would take hours just to get to Hogwarts the normal way. And she should really do this now. But shadow magic had a lot of interesting applications — she didn't actually have to _go_ there to talk to Charissa. She had known this spell for a long time, had used it almost daily back in her Hogwarts years to talk to people from other ends of the castle, but she doubted she'd have been able to get quite the range on it she could now. She hadn't actually tried doing this before, speaking across continents, but she was certain she could.

It hadn't taken very long after arriving for her to realise she'd grievously misunderstood shadow magic. Which wasn't all too surprising: the books she'd found on it in Britain were based on translations of Egyptian texts millennia old, from back when the discipline had been new. In later centuries, the Egyptians had been in greater contact with ancient mages of India, who had a somewhat different understanding of the same branch of magic, and the Egyptians had altered their theory in response, greatly increasing the versatility of the discipline in the process.

See, she'd learned shadow magic was the method of accessing something called _xağīvut-imanjuti_ — the "hidden shadows", a place that was there-but-not-there, just underneath physical reality. But that wasn't it at all. Shadow magic was actually a form of sympathetic magic, achieved through forming associations between two different objects, or places, or concepts. For example, when she stepped through shadows, she wasn't _actually_ travelling through a realm that wasn't quite there, but instead convincing herself there was no meaningful difference between where she was and where she wanted to be, and then convincing the world she was already there. It was tricky, but not complicated.

It was possible she was intentionally distracting herself from the thought of the conversation she was about to have, thinking about this.

This little charm was pretty simple too. The air around her, that vibrated with each word she spoke, was no different than the air inside her daughter's ears. And, when it came down to it, her daughter was little different than she — she was carrying half of her DNA around, after all. It wasn't hard to reach out, to connect the air before her mouth with the air in Charissa's ears, and vice versa, the thousands of kilometres between them may as well not even exist. 'Charissa?' she said, then nodded as she felt her magic shimmer with the sound of her voice, exactly as it should.

'Mum?' Charissa let out with a sharp gasp. Before Lily could respond, sounding a little oddly breathless, she said, 'No, sorry, I wasn't talking to you. I could swear I just heard...'

Must have been talking to someone. It was late afternoon in Britain right now, Lily had assumed she'd be out of classes, doing whatever it was Charissa got up to there. 'It's me. Shadow magic trick.'

'Oh. Yeah, I didn't imagine it, I got my mum talking in my head, all the way from Kemet, apparently.' A pause — Lily just waited, assuming she was listening to whoever she'd been with when Lily had called. 'Ah, well, I can ask. Mum, Hermione wants to know if you can hear her.'

'Nope, just you.'

'Right. She can't hear you, Maïa, just me.' Lily blinked. She didn't think she'd ever heard Charissa call Hermione that. After another short silence, Charissa snorted out a laugh. 'Right, I'll be sure to tell her. Sorry about this.' A couple seconds. 'Yeah, see you in a minute. Okay, Mum, give me a second here.'

'No rush.' Lily had half-expected Charissa would be busy but there really wasn't a good way to warn her before just dropping in.

A few more seconds, filled only with the slight rasp of Charissa's breath. 'Right, okay, I'm good. Sorry about that, I was sort of in the middle of something.'

Lily frowned a little at the odd tone on the edge of her daughter's voice. She was clearly implying something, but Lily wasn't sure. 'Middle of what?'

Her voice a smirking drawl, Charissa said, 'Well, Hermione. She's rather annoyed with you right now, by the way. She says, "Knock first, next time."'

Had... Had she basically just walked in on her daughter having sex? Lily lifted both hands to rub at her face, shaking her head to herself. Okay. That was awkward. She should probably apologise to Hermione for that next time she saw her. Wait a second, it was the middle of the afternoon there. Was this a regular thing, Charissa and Hermione just sneaking off to— No, never mind, she didn't even want to think about that. Oh, _wow_ , when Charissa had blurted out "Mum" Hermione must have thought for a second— Nope, nope, stop it. 'Ah, yes, well...' _God_ , she sounded uncomfortable even to herself, ugh. 'Er, my bad.'

'It's fine, don't worry about it. You might want to apologise to Hermione later, though. She seemed, well, mortified, a little bit.'

Honestly, Lily was a little surprised Charissa _wasn't_ , but puzzling that out really wasn't important right now. 'Yeah, I'll do that. Anyway, I just got your letter.'

When Charissa spoke, after a short hesitation, her voice was flatter, lower, sounding just a bit uncomfortable. 'Ah, yes, I thought you might have.'

'I'm sorry I didn't explain all this earlier. I was just...' Lily trailed off, not exactly sure what to say here. This entire conversation was going to be awkward, she was simply not prepared for this. Which was a little ridiculous, considering she'd known she'd eventually need to have this conversation for over a decade, and she _still_ had no idea what she was doing.

'It's fine. I just, it's been very confusing lately. I've been trying not to think about it.'

Lily almost laughed at that. That made two of them. 'Well, I'll just start at the beginning, how about that.'

'You and your lectures.' Despite the sigh Charissa had said it in, Lily could hear the trace of amusement easily enough, so she couldn't be too annoyed.

So she just smiled to herself a little, settling in with her arms wrapped over her stomach. Yeah, she realised she could certainly talk when she got going. Teaching probably wouldn't be a terrible idea, now that she thought about it. 'Before anything, I just have to...' Lily let out a long sigh. God, this was gonna be awful. 'You know I love you.'

The word drawn out, sounding slightly confused, Charissa said, 'Yeah.'

'And, it doesn't... No matter what happens, no matter what, that'll never change.'

'Erm, yeah, Mum, I know.'

'Just...' Lily rubbed at her face again with one hand, ruthlessly suppressing the tightness starting up her chest. 'Just, try to remember that. Even if it doesn't seem like it.'

For a couple seconds, Charissa didn't say anything. Then, sounding slightly worried, 'Are you okay?'

'No, not really.' Lily let out another sigh, cursing at herself in her head. Just do it, come on. 'I could tell you were different almost right away. You always felt...cold, and... It wasn't until I had your brothers that I realised just how big of a difference it was. I mean, I can hardly remember you ever asking to be held. When you got older, you'd even actively resist it sometimes. And it was always hard to get you to...' Lily frowned, not sure how to get that thought across.

She knew, from research she'd done into muggle psychology out of curiosity, that people like Charissa often didn't have the same fear response normal people did, which basically meant the standard parenting playbook was completely useless. Kids like Charissa didn't respond to punishment or reward the way normal kids did. Before Charissa had been old enough to start rationally explaining Rules to her, it'd been practically impossible to get her to do anything at all.

James had found the whole thing amusing, talking about how Charissa was shaping up to be a fine heir to the prankster legacy. It never had seemed to sink in that Charissa hadn't been intentionally being a handful, the toddler doing exactly what she felt like doing, even and sometimes especially if her parents had told her not to. It just hadn't clicked in her head that she _should_ listen to her parents when they told her not to do things, no matter what those things were. Which was a far more serious problem.

And she realised she was rambling, both in her head and verbally. She just...really didn't want to talk about this. Eventually, she would have to explain the reasoning behind the Rules, and... Fuck, that was something Lily really didn't like to think about. _She'd brainwashed her own child_. Arguably, all parents did, but still...

She was sure Charissa was going to be angry. That she would hate her, and everything would be ruined, and it all would have been for nothing. Lily knew she probably would, in Charissa's place.

'Just, shite, I'll just spit it out, I'm being ridiculous.' Lily took a long breath, girding herself. 'You're a sociopath.' Years ago, she'd debated in her head for a while before deciding to use sociopath over psychopath. From what she could tell, there wasn't any professional consensus exactly what psychopathy even _was_ , and she'd read dozens of different authors give dozens of different explanations on how to distinguish the two. "Psychopath" sounded worse, which seemed as reasonable a justification to use the other as any she had.

For a few seconds, there was silence from the charm, Charissa not even seeming to breathe. Finally, she said, 'Oh. Well... That sort of explains a lot, actually.'

'You do know what the word means, right.'

'Yeah, I read some of your psychology books a couple summers ago.' Oh, well, obviously. 'I never thought to think of it that way, but it explains a lot. I mean, I never...' Charissa trailed off, by the sound of it continuing the thought in her head. Then she let out a short chuckle. 'Shite, I don't even feel about _food_ the way other people do.'

Lily blinked at that. 'Really?'

'No. It didn't even occur to me to think about it, you know, I just thought it was the way everyone was. Didn't even notice until I started picking up things from other people's heads — though, in retrospect, I guess how some people can be about it should have made it obvious. I mean, sure, there are some things I avoid, and some things I'll pick over others. But for the most part I only bother eating so I won't be hungry. I can't say I really like anything the way other people seem to.'

Huh. That was rather...odd. Come to think of it, had Charissa _ever_ stated a preference for any meal ever? She'd never even asked for sweets or biscuits the way her brothers would. She hadn't even noticed. Rather innocuous, she guessed, but still weird. 'Well, I guess that could be part of it. I never really thought about it.'

'It explains why other people don't always make sense, too. They're acting on needs and wants I simply don't have, so of course it doesn't make sense to me. Well, I had sort of assumed that already, but this is more specific, I guess. I should probably read more of those psychology books,' a little lower, 'that'd probably help.'

For some reason, Lily found herself holding back a laugh. She couldn't help it, the thought of Charissa reading psychology textbooks to help her deal with other people was inexplicably hilarious. She had a random thought, and hesitated a second before asking. She had always wondered. 'I'm curious about something, if you don't mind telling me. Back in second year, why did you do that to Draco?'

'I was angry.'

'Yes, I gathered that much. Why?'

'Er, well, he had been being an arse.'

'I know, I just...' Lily frowned, trying to think of how to phrase her question. 'I'm just trying to figure out the emotional logic behind it. Say, Draco hurts Hermione, you care about Hermione, so her being hurt hurts you, so then you hurt him back. Like that?'

'No, not...' Charissa didn't say anything for long moments, but Lily could quite nearly feel her thinking, so she waited. 'It wasn't even really about...' Another couple seconds, and Charissa spoke again, but in a low, chill whisper that nearly made Lily shiver. 'She's _mine_.'

Ah, okay then. She'd always wondered if Charissa had maybe shown empathy for a second there. Never mind, false alarm. 'Right, I get it. Just curious.'

Although... Come to think of it, if she'd been that possessive from that early, Charissa and Hermione's inevitable breakup might go much, much worse than she'd originally thought. Hmm.

While she worried about that, Charissa was saying, 'You'd be surprised how often I fantasise about setting blood supremacists on fire.'

Lily almost laughed. 'Ah, probably not, actually. It's very possible I have the same problem.'

'Muirgen, they're so annoying.'

'No disagreement here.'

'I'd probably have done it a few times by now, if it weren't...' Charissa trailed off, and Lily couldn't help a wince. She was pretty sure she knew what tangent Charissa's thoughts were slipping down. 'That's why you taught me the Rules.'

Lily cringed away, biting her lip. Which was really quite silly. What was she even cringing away _from_? Charissa couldn't see her, was _literally thousands of kilometres away_ right now. Very silly. 'Ah, yeah. I... I knew you would never...' She clenched her arms tighter around her stomach, trying to ignore her tightening throat, keep her voice as clear as possible. 'I was just trying to keep you safe. It was the only thing I could... I didn't know what else to do. I'm sorry.'

'What for?'

That... Okay, that was not the response she'd been expecting. 'Charissa, I... I brainwashed you. I'm supposed to be your mother, and I _brainwashed you_.'

'Well, sure, if you want to call it that. I don't think the word is quite appropriate, but sure. And, even if it were, I'm pretty sure I would be far worse off if you hadn't. So... I guess what I'm saying is I'm glad you did.'

Lily thought she might cry. Which was silly, she was being so silly. But the simple words had shot a ray of light into a dark burden she'd been carrying for a decade now, and she was practically shaking with relief, it was almost impossible to stop herself. The pessimist in the back of her mind insisted Charissa only thought that because she'd been taught to, but Lily ignored it best she could, just luxuriating in the knowledge that Charissa didn't hate her, it was _fine_ , everything was going to be _fine_.

'Er, Mum? Are you okay?'

'Yeah, I'm fine.' She focused on her breathing, trying to keep it steady, but her head was too filled with blissful ease, and she was almost kind of laughing at herself for how stupid she'd been to worry about this so much for so long. Sev was right, she really could be an idiot sometimes.

'You were really that worried I'd be angry.' It wasn't quite a question.

'I know I shouldn't have been, even Sev was yelling at me for it. I don't know.' She broke off to wipe at her eyes — only a couple, her fingers were barely damp, but she felt slightly embarrassed she'd let herself lose control even that much. 'Mum stuff, I guess. I love you, sweetheart.'

'I love you too, Mum.'

She blinked at that. Honestly, she couldn't remember the last time Charissa had said that to her. And suddenly she was far too curious. She wasn't sure she really wanted to know the answer but... Eh, what could it hurt? 'Do you?'

'I...' Charissa was silent for a few seconds, clearly thinking. 'I think, yes. I would have said so without thinking about it before, if I'd been asked, but... It's not the same as what other people feel. I've seen a lot of memories of people's mums in their heads and, well, it's not the same. But _I'm_ not the same. I... I think this is just what love is like for me. So, yes.'

Lily had no idea why. It didn't make a whole lot of sense. Charissa had worded that thing rather ambiguously, she'd sounded so uncertain. It hadn't been a very strong, confident statement, not at all.

But for some reason, Lily felt a silly grin pulling at her own face.

* * *

Shōshen — _Pronounced "_ _ **sho**_ _-shen" (IPA:_ /ʃo:.ʃən/ _). Literally just Coptic for lily, the flower (originally, lotus, but Afro–Asiatic languages tend to conflate the two)._

Parmūte — _Pronounced roughly "par-_ _ **moo**_ _-tuh" (IPA:_ /pʰɐɾ.'mu:.tʰə/ _), the Coptic name for a month on the old Egyptian calendar, roughly corresponding to early April through early May, originally named for a goddess of the harvest. The "seasonal winds" Lily refers to are the khamasīn (Egyptian Arabic:_ خماسين _, literally "fifties"). What is_ _a "cool, pleasant breeze" in Bakin-Sēt is a deadly sandstorm for the muggles outside their wards._

Xūsiẖ — _Pronounced roughly "_ _ **who**_ _-suh" (IPA:_ /xu:.səħ/ _). Far as I know, it's not a real name, I just looked at a list of medieval Coptic names for a bit and made something up._

Menfenic — _An English interpretation of the Kemetic term for the language in the period of ancient Egyptian history the throne of the king was in Memphis, roughly 3200 to 2160 BCE. Covering a period of roughly a thousand years, the language obviously wasn't unchanged that whole time, so the term is more an historically convenient one than a linguistically precise one. And, yes, Memphis wasn't actually called Memphis at the time, but the name was changed by the New Kingdom to one that survived in Coptic as Menfe, and it was that name Kemetic scholars in their big renaissance magical Egyptian culture had some centuries ago decided to stick with._

xağīvut-imanjuti — _This one is Ancient Egyptian. This is pronounced roughly "_ _ **h**_ _a-_ _ **ghee**_ _-voot ih-man-_ _ **you**_ _-tee" (Egyptian: IPA:_ /χa.'ʁi:.βʊt ,ɪ.mɐn.'ju.tɪ/ _). The "ğ" is the same sound as an r in French, btdubs, if you know that, and the "x" is the same place, but devoiced. But, you know, I am sort of guessing a bit. Even experts don't perfectly know what Ancient Egyptian was actually like. The same term showed up in chapter 15 of TRW._

Sociopathy vs. psychopathy — _What Lily says, about there being exactly zero professional consensus on what the difference between the two is, is correct. One author will tell you one thing, another will tell you something else, and few agree precisely. Many use the words interchangeably. Some professionals prefer to use sociopathy entirely because there's less chance of confusion with the term psychosis (also Lily's reason). And don't even get me started on the confusing disagreement over where to draw the line between sociopathy and other personality disorders, it's insane. Anyone telling you definitively what the difference is is either misinformed or full of shit._

* * *

 _Bleh. Couple days late, sorry. Had writing problems, and then it ended up way longer than I'd originally anticipated. I sure can ramble._

 _Hmm, which exactly is the next chap... Huh. All right, then xD_

 _Until next time,  
~Wings_


	31. Fourth Year — Powerful

_Look at this, I made myself a birthday present._

* * *

 _May 2nd, 1995_

* * *

Charissa idly watched the minds brushing against hers, waiting for a certain class to get out.

She realised a lot of people found this new hobby of hers unsettling, but she really couldn't help herself. And she meant that literally — if she wasn't wearing that annoying little thing on her ear, it was still quite nearly impossible to block out the random memories and feelings drifting in from other people. But, she could admit to herself, it was very possible she never tried that hard. It was all just too fascinating. Some of the things she found in other people's heads were unpleasant, true, but most of it was just interesting. The things she had learned about people she'd known for years...

And useful. It had always bothered her, quietly somewhere in the back of her head she didn't always acknowledge, that a lot of the social tiptoeing she'd been taught to do from childhood had never really made a lot of sense. She'd never fully understood why certain things should only be said in certain ways, why other things were not appropriate to speak of at all, the expected dances of apology and pride and gratitude and humility. All of it memorised, sure, but it'd never made any sense. Now, with a finger on the pulse of a normal person's mind, she finally saw the motivations for why people did things the way they did. She didn't feel the same shames and embarrassments and violations, but she could see how one thing led to another, it all logically followed.

She hadn't put together until two weeks ago that some of her friends sometimes did and said things that would probably offend a normal person. Hermione borrowing books and yanking away her essays and such to read without asking (which she didn't mind at all), Neville's protectiveness sometimes shading into condescension (which did bother her, but she let him get away with it), Hermione being a bit too open with physical and verbal intimacy in public (which was slightly annoying, but didn't bother her as much as she knew it would most), Jas's tendency toward silly nicknames (again, slightly annoying, but not offensive), Bella's forwardness in assuming she was welcome almost whenever and wherever (which she didn't mind), Luna's comments impolitely direct and seemingly incessant (which were funny more often than not). She'd even caught Alex wearing her clothes more than once, which was a bit odd, the Slytherin girl would have had to somehow get into Ravenclaw Tower unnoticed to pull that off. But she _wasn't_ a normal person — things had been so much easier since she'd just admitted that to herself — and they were her friends, so she'd made the conscious decision to give certain people a free pass.

On the other hand, she'd also noticed some people she hadn't given permission to used her given name, sometimes even random strangers. She did wonder if she should maybe do something about that, but it wasn't a pressing concern.

Unfortunately, she was pretty sure she was still saying the wrong things with Hermione sometimes. Hermione had insisted she didn't want Charissa in her mind, and made her wear that damn thing on her ear whenever Charissa was unlikely to be in control enough to stop herself. Whenever they had sex being the most frequent occasion. She'd taken to going back to her own bed to sleep most nights, because she _hated_ sleeping with the thing on — her dreams were always very strange, and she woke up slow and irritable — and it was almost impossible to stop her mind from wandering when she was half-asleep. (Hermione had consented to putting a ward over her bed, so as long as they weren't sleeping together, Charissa wouldn't accidentally wander in.) In those situations where Hermione would react weirdly to something she said when they were alone, she couldn't just look in her head to figure out what was wrong. Well, she _could_ , but she'd said she wouldn't, so she didn't.

She understood why someone might not be comfortable with it, but she really wished Hermione would let her in her head. Not only because she thought she might be constantly putting her foot in her mouth without knowing why, not only because it would be so much more convenient. And not only because she kind of missed falling asleep on her already. But she was just so _bloody curious_. Other people's thoughts and memories were fascinating, yes, but she thought it some cruel irony that the person she was most interested in figuring out she'd promised to leave alone. It was honestly almost impossible to stop herself from breaking her word sometimes. Very tempting.

Tracey let her in! And Susan, and Kelsey, and Sorcha that one time. She suspected Bella intentionally went out of her way to let Charissa know how completely comfortable she was with it — which she thought was somewhat weird, but she guessed Bella was a bit odd at times — and Charissa wasn't even shagging her! It was just Hermione who'd made her promise not to, for some reason.

Sometimes she wished Mum hadn't told her she should always keep her word if at all possible. It was annoying.

And she really wished this class would get out already. She'd gotten here early on purpose, just in case they were dismissed ahead of schedule, but she was really starting to get tired of waiting. The only people in range, so to speak, where those inside, and they were almost all surprisingly focused on class, so she hadn't any good distractions. Flitwick even had his mind flawlessly shielded, nothing but a low reverberating nothingness to her — which was interesting, he'd already been shielded before he could have possibly felt her, as he always did, she suspected he had his mind guarded at all times. And she was getting bored. She'd picked up a little sixth-year Charms theory from their heads, but it wasn't that far past what she'd learned already, with how she always read ahead, and it was _boring_.

She wondered if the foolish bloke realised how much worse it was going to be for him now, making her wait. That he certainly didn't know she was out here waiting for him was beside the point. She would admit to herself she'd never been very patient. She could pretend to be, of course, if she wanted people to think she was for whatever reason, or if one of the Rules meant she had to be. But she could pretend to be a lot of things.

She sagged against the wall with relief when she felt the focus in the room break, people already planning when they would do the homework they were being assigned, or anticipating whatever they would be getting up to now they were free. Charissa couldn't help a smirk as she counted five different people who were planning to run straight to a lover. She realised she was being somewhat hypocritical, but it still amused her. After another half minute or so, the door was swinging open, and sixth-year Ravenclaws and Slytherins started pouring out into the hall.

It didn't take her long to find the person she was looking for — the familiar texture of his mind pointed her in the right direction rather quickly. Clement Tugwood was walking alone, seemingly unattached to anyone else in the crowd, listlessly starting on his way down toward the dungeons. He was thinking about a project he was working on, Charissa could see, preparing something to impress a certain master after graduation, hopefully secure an enchanting apprenticeship. Charissa couldn't decide if she was impressed or exasperated with him, thinking that far ahead.

She pushed herself away from the wall as he approached, slipped her way into the crowd, ignoring the older students glancing at her, a few throwing a nod or a muttered greeting. He walked slowly closer and, when he was only a couple steps away, finally looked up to meet her eyes. And she struck in that moment.

This was far harder to do. Passive legilimency was easy, easy enough she had more trouble _not_ doing it. Active mind magic was much more difficult. She reached out, a nebulous sensation she never could find words for, not with her magic but with something both less and more, the texture somewhat different. She slipped mental fingers into Tugwood's thoughts, forced into the very surface a simple compulsion, an urge to dismiss all other concerns for the moment, to not worry about anything else, to follow her wherever she might lead.

A temporary, weak compulsion, but enough to do the trick. She felt his thoughts smooth out, focused on what she wished them to be focused on, his gaze going somewhat glassy. So she turned and walked off, aware of the boy following a few steps behind her. In a couple minutes she had led him up a flight of stairs, down a hall into an empty classroom, an abandoned alchemy lab she'd cleaned and prepared ahead of time. She closed the door behind them, pulled out her wand, layered the door in locking and sealing charms, followed by more to ensure they wouldn't be overheard. That should do it. With a glance back at Tugwood, she ripped her compulsion out of his head, allowing his thoughts to once again be his own.

Tugwood teetered on his feet for a moment, but managed to keep his balance. He looked around the room in confusion, before his eyes again found her. She didn't need to be in his head to catch his moment of surprise. He did manage to bring up the stereotypical cool facade of nobility after that second of disorientation, but he still wasn't shielding his mind. She could tell he was confused and nervous. 'Miss Potter, I—' He glanced around at the empty room quick, shaking his head to himself. 'Did something happen? I don't remember getting here.'

'Hmm.' She drew out the hum for a moment, cocking her head a bit, smirking at him. 'Never mind that now.' Memories never did form properly in a mind under that sort of surface compulsion anyway. 'See, there's something I wanted to... _discuss_ with you.'

'Oh?' He licked his lips, glancing at the door behind her, but didn't move.

'You can't guess?' Still smirking, Charissa started slinking toward him, very consciously putting a swaggering sway into her hips. 'Why, I think I may be insulted, Tugwood. You didn't really think you were hiding it from me, did you?'

Visibly nervous now, his voice slightly shaky, he said, 'Ah, hiding what?'

Charissa pushed her lips into a pout. Tugwood was distracted by that, just as she'd hoped he would be, and she latched onto the thought, yanked at the memories associated with it, searching for and quickly finding those fantasies of his she'd overheard some time ago now. She wasn't quite as smooth at directing people's thoughts like this as Severus was, but she could do it well enough, knew Tugwood would know exactly what she was looking at. Her smirk twitched wider at the embarrassed wince crossing his face. 'If you hadn't wanted me to see this, you shouldn't have thought it in my presence. Or at least have _attempted_ to shield your thoughts. Honestly, Tugwood...'

And now he was embarrassed, even half-terrified, his fair cheeks turning very pink. That was really quite funny. She was getting close to him now, enough he was leaning away, uncomfortable but, she could see, not sure if stepping away would offend her further. 'I– Miss Potter, I didn't– I mean—'

'Relax, you silly boy.' She knew it would be impossible to keep her amusement off her voice, and, really, it wasn't like she cared, so she didn't bother. 'I'm not offended. Well,' she said with a little shrug, 'I _am_ offended, but not for the reason you're thinking.'

'Er...' His face looking rather red now, darker than the mixed blond hair framing it, he gave her a confused look.

'It would be quite flattering, were it not for the _details_.' After a second of rifling around, she unearthed the specific one she remembered from the library, Tugwood forcefully screwing her against a bookshelf, the imaginary Charissa far too passive, pliant for her tastes. It made her skin crawl. 'It's _this_ that bothers me,' she said, forcing his thoughts to linger on a specific moment, the imaginary Charissa yielding to the imaginary Tugwood, meekly letting him direct her. 'You see my problem?'

Now he looked half-terrified again, his mind bucking under hers in half-hearted protest. 'Ah, well...'

'See, I have my own thoughts on how such a thing might go. Curious?'

He was avoiding her eyes, he didn't say anything, but she could tell by the direction of his thoughts that he definitely was. He just didn't think it was appropriate to say so. A little scared of what she might do to him as well, perhaps.

She smirked.

Leaning away from him again, she reached for the magic just under her skin, forced it out as tendrils of grasping power. Before Tugwood could barely react, she'd plucked him off the floor, whipped him through the air, and slammed him against a wall a few metres to her left. He let out a pained gasp as he hit stone, but Charissa wasn't concerned. She'd planned ahead and laid a softening charm under that span of wall before going to grab him. He wasn't actually hurt.

But, well, even if she had accidentally broken a couple ribs, she wasn't really inclined to care at the moment.

She smoothly sauntered over to him again, smirking as the older boy struggled fruitlessly against her magic holding him pressed solid against the wall. By the time she was within a couple steps, she knew exactly where to reach to pull his wand out of a pocket. She held the thing in front of his wide eyes for a moment, just to taunt him a little. 'I don't think you'll be needing this.' She slipped his wand into the wrist holster she'd kept empty for this exact purpose, being very obvious about what he was doing, making sure he saw it.

The frisson of terror running through his body and mind almost made her giggle. He was completely at her mercy. She could do whatever she wanted to him right now, and there would be nothing he could do about it. And he knew it.

It brought bright, ecstatic excitement running down her spine like lightning, and she had to bite her lip to keep herself from tittering.

'Now, now, Tugwood.' She slipped closer to him, until the cloth of their robes rasped against each other, an odd, sharp scent hanging about him drifting into her nose. Some sort of hygiene potion, maybe? She'd admit she wasn't very familiar with the male equivalent of that sort of thing. She altered the magic holding him against the wall a bit, sliding him down a few inches, pushed his head a bit to the side, so she could slip her face in toward his hot neck.

The contained shaking she felt from him just made her smirk wider.

'There's no reason to be _quite_ so terrified of me.' She could feel his thoughts turning at her breath brushing against his skin, nascent lust already rising against fear. A little further forward and she was flush against him, and she tilted slightly from one foot to the other, shifting softly against him just to torment him further. 'I'm not so cruel as to not let you enjoy yourself. It will simply be at _my_ behest.'

She was temporarily distracted when she noticed his "lust rising" was becoming quite literal. She had to break a moment to giggle to herself — _that_ hadn't taken very long. She hadn't been sure if she should believe it when Kelsey had told her so, since she'd only ever been with girls before, but she hadn't been kidding. _Muirgen_ , boys were easy...

Once she had her focus back, her voice low and hard, 'Though, I suppose I may have to punish you just a little for your _presumption_.' With the last word, let out in a harsh hiss, she turned the magic restraining him a bit sharper, unyielding shards digging mercilessly into his skin.

She felt him wince, trying to pull away on instinct, but she could tell it changed nothing, she could see that he still very much wanted her. In fact, she felt the animal heat in his mind only rage higher, his breath turning thin, tingling excitement dancing across his skin.

She tilted her head a little, staring at his neck an inch away. Huh. Fascinating.

'I know what you want,' she whispered, leaning up a bit to breathe it straight into his ear. 'I can see it in your head. But I'm going to need you to say it out loud for me.' Just to be sure. Mum had told her not to force people, after all. That was one of the Rules. Despite the window she had into his thoughts and feelings, she suspected if she didn't hear it she'd end up wondering later.

Not that she wasn't planning on forcing him. She just thought he should verbally consent to it first. That made it okay, right?

Once she'd released the pressure holding his jaw closed, Tugwood let out a long, gasping sigh, then a high gibbering she didn't understand, muttering nonsense to himself. 'Just, just do it,' he said, his voice little more than a moan. 'Do whatever you want.'

A chuckle working at her throat, Charissa thought she might actually be grinning. That had _not_ been a very smart thing to say to her.

Luckily for the stupid boy, she wasn't terrible with healing charms.

* * *

 _May 13th, 1995_

* * *

Lily let out a long sigh, dropped the letter down to her bed, freeing her hands to rub at her forehead. Apparently, Britain couldn't go along without needing her for even three months.

She honestly wasn't sure if she should feel more flattered or annoyed.

Oh well, might as well get it over with. Since she had managed to improve her shadow-walking quite a bit it shouldn't even take very long, and she could drop in on a few people as long as she was in Britain. Perry could use a visit, she should make sure Sev wasn't negligently starving himself with her gone so long, she knew a few people who might be able to look into which clan had Blessed Charissa — she still had trouble wrapping her mind around _that_ whole situation, bloody mental. Trying not to feel too intimidated by the thought that she was about to go hopping across an entire continent under her own power, she pushed her way out of bed, changed out of the scant clothing she usually wore under her silly white robe down here for the familiar black and silver trousers and tunic. It would be far too hot outside with the internationally recognisable blood-red cloak actually around her shoulders — honestly, it was going to be unbearable even without it, she should take the time to see if she could design a better cooling charm — so she just folded the thing over her arm instead.

She walked on through her rooms, trying not to be too annoyed with being pulled away from her bloody holiday. Didn't they have Unspeakables for this kind of thing? Honestly. She was half buried in her thoughts when she got to the door, slid it open, so she quite nearly ran into the girl standing just outside of it.

Lily jumped back, her heart pounding suddenly far harder in her throat than she thought was entirely justified, rubbed at her eyes for a second. Smooth, Evans, pay attention. 'Were you looking for me, Elīc?'

The younger woman, her loose, delicate silk dress showing far more skin than Lily could really get away with around here without getting terrible sunburns, didn't speak for some moments, blinking in visible confusion at the cloak over Lily's arm. The Auror uniform did change somewhat culture to culture, but the blood-red cloak was quite nearly an international standard, so she certainly recognised it. 'Ah, I was, actually. Is something wrong?' She was confused enough the touch of her native language on the Kemetic was more overpowering than usual — Lily had found Elīc's accent a bit hard to understand at first, but she was well-used to it now.

She shook her head, flipping a dismissive hand over her shoulder. 'No, no, they just want me back home for a couple hours. They have a weird crime scene, apparently, and they want to borrow my magesight. I'll probably be back tomorrow. Did you need something?'

Elīc gave a light shrug. 'Nothing, really. Mistress Akēxit and I were only wondering if you'd like to have dinner with us again.' As she always did in public, Elīc used her wife's proper title. Lily still hadn't decided what to think about that.

Not that she was sure what to think about the pair in general, really. They'd been almost unnervingly friendly and welcoming since she'd gotten here — this wasn't even close to the first time she'd been invited over, and at least one of them ended up chatting with her about something or another almost every day. More than once, she'd found herself wondering if it weren't all some low-key tag-team effort to seduce her or something. It was very possible she was reading into it something that wasn't there — that sort of misunderstanding was far too easy to reach across cultural boundaries, and she'd admit the badgering she'd been getting at home recently might have made her a bit paranoid — but whether it was really happening or just her imagination it never failed to make her uncomfortable.

She hated not being sure. If she knew for sure they were trying to get her into their bed, she could just tell them to piss off, but that would be sort of a bitchy thing to do if they were just being friendly.

But, right, talking to her right now. Pay attention, Evans. 'Not tonight. Some other time.'

Elīc nodded, smiling at her all soft as usual. 'All right. Safe travels, Shōshen.' And she started off down the dark hallway, almost seeming to glide more than walk, her dress sent flickering in the wan light by swaying hips.

Yes, things exactly like that made her wonder. Shaking her head to herself — that girl — Lily stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind her. She didn't see much point in physically walking anywhere if she was just going to be shadow-walking after anyway, so she immediately reached for her magic. Thinking of a certain spot at the temple wardline, how the tiles on the ground there were really no different than the stone floor here, she shaped a shred of her power into an ethereal blade, pierced the fabric of reality around her, yanking herself into shadows.

After a bare instant, the freezing darkness dropped away, and she was standing in the hot Egyptian sun, the ever-present spring breeze playing at her hair. Barely sparing a glance for her surroundings, she stepped over the wardline, thought of a certain spot at the edge of the city, stepped again through shadows, then physically over a second wardline, then through shadows.

Standing a few metres from the water, Lily gasped at the thick sea air, sagging with relief as the salty wetness struck her throat. _God_ , she'd almost forgotten what actual humidity felt like. She took a long moment just standing there, breathing, the comparatively cool wind and the crashing of the waves, and the fact just breathing the air didn't make her feel like she had to cough, bringing an involuntary smile twitching at her lips. Why had these people decided to live in the middle of the fucking desert in the first place, honestly...

When she'd had her moment, she opened her eyes again, focusing on the wardline in the distance. It was a bit hard to see, which wasn't so surprising — Egypt was one of the very few magical countries in the world that even had national wards, there were reasons they weren't more common. It was maybe a half mile out into the Mediterranean, a soft, shimmering barrier of rainbow light, sparking here and there as the sun struck it, setting the water to glow. Fixing in mind a spot on the water, Lily again stepped into shadows, casting a charm she'd copied from that Delacour girl around her feet the instant the physical world reappeared. Two more steps along the flattened surface of the water had her outside of Egypt, and in another second she'd vanished.

She was decently sure distance didn't actually matter in shadow-walking — the entire point was that any one place on earth was the same as any other, it theoretically shouldn't make a difference. Of course, as happened with many things in magic, it was only as true as the caster believed it was, which she now knew was why she'd had much greater trouble with the skill before. It was very possible she could have gone straight from Alexandria to London, with no more noticeable effort than it'd taken to reach the temple wardline. But, just to be safe, she made a stop just outside Rome, in the gardens of a little villa she'd visited once during an ICW conference, which she knew was roughly the halfway point. She gave herself a moment to rest, her magic to resettle, flinging her cloak over her shoulders as long as she wasn't going anywhere. She counted down from five, just to be sure, then stepped into shadows again, the Auror Office in London materialising around her an instant later.

Just a couple minutes after she'd arrived, she had her portkey, and she was leaving again. Not that she actually used the portkey, she never did if she could avoid it. It'd been decades now, and she _still_ hadn't gotten used to portkeys, she hated the fucking things. She'd designed a shadow magic trick to go to the destination of any portkey she was touching instead. Yes, she'd spent months toying with the arithmancy to get the bloody thing to work, and casting the charm while shadow-walking as she had to do to pull it off was a weird balancing act it'd taken her ages to get used to, but she felt it was entirely worth it. Fuck portkeys.

She was momentarily surprised when she heard the ocean again. Quieter, the low constant roar it takes from enough of a distance, but present. Come to think of it, she really shouldn't be surprised. She hadn't had the site described to her, but she knew it was in a tiny little village far on the west coast of Ireland. Or maybe even one of the little islands out there, she wasn't entirely sure, honestly. Gaelic mages had been jokingly calling the place "the edge of the world" for generations. She looked around, quickly spotting the nearby village over grasses and random protrusions of dark rock, modest homes of wood and slate, numbering maybe two dozen, at most.

Lily recognised the familiar stasis and containment wards around one house at a glance, immediately set off. As she walked between the houses, she tried to fight back the cold shiver running up her spine — the tiny little village was far too quiet, not a single person outside, barely a peep coming from inside the houses. At this time of day, a small place like this, it probably would have been mostly barren anyway, but it was still creepy. The place would almost seem abandoned, if not for the healthy enchantments shimmering along walls and ceilings, vibrant plants hanging from windows and corners, a couple voices murmuring up ahead.

Those few voices, she saw as she came around the last house between herself and the site, were a couple patrolmen and a middle-aged man, almost certainly a local. She wasn't quite as comfortable with the traditions of the Gaelic Common Houses as she probably should be — she was far more familiar with how the Noble Houses did things, and their traditions were often completely different — but she thought the band of gleaming silverish metal around one shoulder marked the man, tall and broad-shouldered with just the beginnings of grey touching the edges of his dark auburn hair, as a leader of some sort. Perhaps the Master of a House, maybe the equivalent of a mayor for their little village here. His mildly defensive posture, back confidently straight and arms firmly crossed and eyes suspiciously narrowed, suggested to her the latter. By their uneasy smiles, the slight tension about the patrolmen's shoulders, she guessed he was being accommodating, but not very polite about it.

And all that without legilimency. She made a mental note to tease Sev later.

'Ah!' One of the patrolmen turned to her, a younger man with a freckled face and almost painfully bright blond hair. It took her a second before the name came to her — Mather, she was pretty sure. 'There you are.'

The other snorted, muttered something about taking her long enough. Lily glared at the older, dark-haired man. She recognised this one too, Adrian Fenwick, they'd run into each other before. He really didn't like her. Which she guessed was fair, since she didn't like him either. Forcing her tone as polite as possible, she said, 'Considering I didn't even know you wanted me until less than half an hour ago, and I was roughly four thousand kilometres away at the time, I'd say I got here rather quickly.'

Fenwick just grumbled at that, but Mather blinked, the picture of pleasant confusion. 'That far? Wait, are you still on holiday?'

'Yes.'

Mather winced, feet shuffling a little. 'Ah, I'm sorry, Dame Black. If I knew were still out, I wouldn't have made the suggestion.'

That was nice of him, she guessed, but she was already here, so it was a bit late. Really, she was more annoyed at the "Dame Black" part, but by now she'd accepted people weren't going to go back to calling her Evans, no matter what she did. Bloody mages and their bloody Houses. 'It's fine,' she said, shrugging it off. 'What did you need me for?'

'We have a missing person, and the magic in the house is...well, odd.' Mather looked a bit uncomfortable, almost disturbed, so "odd" was probably an understatement.

'You know, we do have Unspeakables for this kind of thing.'

Fenwick gave her an unpleasant look at that. 'If we called the Unspeakables, they'd keep whatever they learned to themselves, and we'd probably never know what happened to the old woman.'

Well. It was very possible they weren't wrong. The Department of Mysteries could be a bit annoying about their secrets. 'Old woman?'

The local man answered, his voice touched with a very obvious Irish accent. 'Her name is Badhbhín Nic Dhuibhshíthe, if you _don't_ mind.' No, he did not sound happy at all. Lily thought she caught a tone of worry there, but it was obvious he was trying to hide it in front of them. For some reason. People could be weird, whatever.

Fenwick muttered again, something about not being able to pronounce that. He was being rather rude, but Lily couldn't honestly disagree — that name was a bit of a mouthful.

After an acknowledging nod at the man, Lily turned back to Mather. 'Do we know anything about what happened?'

But it was the local man who answered, low and even, a barely noticeable hint of anxiety colouring his voice. 'She did not come out this morning. Badhbhín has been living here for a very long time, longer than I've been alive, and every morning at sunrise she comes out, goes to the cliff—' He nodded to the west, nearer the rocky shore. '—to meditate, hands out biscuits to the children before going home to read. She has done this, every day, since before I was born. When she did not get up this morning, my cousin and I went in to check on her, and we found...' He trailed off, his eyes unfocusing. 'Well, she wasn't there. We called for help.'

Lily instantly dismissed nearly every question she could possibly ask to someone to narrow down options on where she could find Badhbhín. If this woman did little but hand out biscuits to children and read, she doubted there was much the man could tell her that would be helpful. Not to mention Lily was guessing she had to be at least in her nineties — judging by the man's visible age, and that she'd apparently had this routine for longer than he'd been alive, she couldn't be any younger. Such almost sickeningly pleasant older women didn't exactly make a lot of dangerous enemies, especially not ones in tiny, isolated communities like these. Not that she was there for that part anyway. She'd only been called for her magesight. 'Well, I guess I'll just go take a look. The wards open?'

Mather nodded. 'Go ahead. We'll wait out here.'

With a last, respectful bow of her head to the man — no reason to make more of an arse of herself than necessary — Lily started walking to the door. The house was no different than the others, simple wood and slate, undecorated save for the occasional plant here or there, bright with spring flowers in purples and reds. But once Lily was within a few steps, passing through the rainbow shimmering of the stasis wards, she jerked to a halt, letting in a sharp gasp.

Something wasn't right.

She'd noticed a long time ago, even when she'd been back in Hogwarts, that when she didn't hold in her magic like she usually did when around other people it had a tendency to seep into her surroundings. Slowly, gradually over time, but places she spent enough time in, objects she was in contact with often enough, were eventually permeated with traces of her. Mostly it was just an echo of her presence, but she'd noticed objects she used frequently were changed by her magic, unconsciously enchanted. Since she never had gotten used to quills, when she'd started at the Department she'd ordered a brush-tipped pen from somewhere east — the strokes from such things looked similar enough to ink and quill most couldn't tell the difference, but were much easier to write with — and she'd had the thing for going on a decade now, and she'd never had to replace it. She hadn't even needed to refill the ink for years. Pens simply did not last that long. She'd noticed a few of the chairs in the library at her old home with James had gradually acquired permanent cushioning charms that hadn't been there before, doors would open and close for her without her having to touch them, even her coffee grinder had started on its own when she entered the kitchen in the morning the last year she'd been living there. She figured this sort of thing just happened around a sorceress, her magic slowly altering her surroundings, even if she didn't consciously intend to do it. She'd never read about it, but it seemed like the sort of thing that could happen around especially powerful mages.

This house had, obviously, been the home of a _very_ powerful witch. Magic wafted off the building in waves, so thick she could taste it tingling and biting on her tongue, lightning crackling in her ears and along her hair. She had to blink for a moment to adjust to the sharp, brilliantly glowing enchantments sheathing the house, one atop another atop another, dozens and dozens of them, so solid from decades of constant reinforcement she doubted she could break them if she tried, so blindingly bright she couldn't read them well enough to tell what they did.

There was so _much_ of it! She'd never seen anything like this before. There were a few places she'd been to that were almost painful to her acute magical senses, yes — she'd been to the wardstones of Hogwarts once but had only been able to stand it a few seconds before she'd had to leave, one trip to Greece she'd lost consciousness just crossing a wardline, there were a few places in Bakin-Sēt she avoided even walking past if she didn't want to make her teeth hurt, and she'd passed on visiting some of the old temples and monuments entirely, knowing she probably couldn't tolerate them. But those were all _extremely_ old, wards and enchantments built upon over centuries, millennia, magic collected so thick she was sure even muggles would feel it on the air. This was just some house sitting in the middle of nowhere.

And it didn't have the wild, unbound feel of ambient magic either, as those places usually did. No, this was all power from a single person. She walked a bit closer, placed her hand flat against the door, closed her eyes. The magic of different people felt different, she'd observed that a very long time ago. It wasn't always predictable, and she wasn't sure if those differences even meant anything, but it was noticeable. Sometimes, she didn't even need to do those forensic analysis charms she'd been taught ages ago, because she could tell who'd cast a spell just by the echo of their soul on the traces of magic left behind. But it was never so _thick_ as this, so overwhelmingly bearing down on her, and she didn't think she'd ever felt... It was like there was so much of it, it wasn't just power, undifferentiated magical energy but she could almost feel...

There were memories in here. They were too indistinct to really pick apart, but the woman had left behind enough of herself that Lily got some vague images. Through the lightning sting of her magic, Lily saw flashes of blood on grass, gleaming in the moonlight, flames and blades and screams, a shaking child held in her arms, soothing whispers in ears, enemies broken at her feet, cowering under merciless eyes, they would _not_ , these people were _hers_ , they would _not_ harm them, they were hers, hers, _hers_ —

Lily yanked her hand away from the wood of the door, shaking her head to herself. No, she hadn't felt anything like this before. She was suddenly having a very odd suspicion. She glanced back at the three men behind her, noticing the local man was still looking worried, yes, but also...suspicious, almost violated. He was concerned for his neighbour, yes, she could see that but, she suspected, he also didn't want her to figure out what she just had.

He had said Badhbhín had been living here longer than he'd been alive. He'd said she'd had that same routine since before he'd been born. He had _not_ said exactly for how long, he had not said how old she actually was.

Badhbhín was not an ordinary woman. Lily was almost certain, already convinced by what she'd felt, that this was the home of an immortal.

Wait. It couldn't be, could it? An immortal witch, tiny little village in the middle of nowhere in Ireland, obvious traces of dark magic about the place, bloody hell, even the name, _Badhbhín Nic Dhuibhshíthe..._

No. No, it couldn't be.

Doing her best to ignore the terrifying suspicion, Lily took a deep breath, and opened the door into what she desperately hoped _wasn't_ the home of the _Queen of fucking Nightmares_.

Jesus, this was not her day...

Thankfully, the place seemed mostly normal. The little entryway she walked into was perfectly plain and domestic, a few pairs of ordinary shoes on the rough tile, a couple cloaks hanging along the wall. Still oppressively thick with magic, of course, but not too unusual. She wandered through the place, gradually calming the more she saw. It seemed a perfectly ordinary single-person house. Not at all what she would expect from quite possibly the oldest and most powerful dark sorceress on the entire bloody planet, a woman feared for literally millennia. She'd probably just been getting a bit paranoid back there. Nothing too much to worry about.

That was when she found the library, obviously the scene of the crime. It took her maybe three minutes to reconstruct what had happened in her head. And she was promptly terrified again.

It wasn't that unusual of a room. A plain granite fireplace which, by the look of the uneven ashes inside, had been allowed to burn down untended. A leather armchair layered so much with the woman's magic Lily wouldn't be surprised if it were sinfully comfortable, a small table just to the side. Every single foot of wall covered with bookshelves, every inch packed tight with books and scrolls. The room was much brighter than it should be, with no windows and the fire out — obviously, there was some sort of enchantment in the ceiling, she couldn't say for sure what, but it'd probably be pitch black in here without it. It was a nice little room. She'd probably make something very similar for herself, if she had a little house of her own like this one.

Badhbhín had been in the chair, reading — there was a book fallen on the carpet just in front of it, but it was in Irish, Lily couldn't read the title. Lily was almost certain she'd jumped to her feet, dropping her book, when that paling had gone up. She could barely feel the thing anymore, just broken shards of it left behind, but it felt like an anti-transportation ward. An extremely thorough one. It would have blocked apparation, portkeys, the floo, even displacement. Shadow magic would have been useless, even a bloody phoenix probably wouldn't have been able to get through.

There had been — Lily glanced around at the traces of magic, the angles of the spells' effects on the walls — two attackers. Maybe three, but she thought only two had cast offensive spells. Badhbhín had managed to dodge the first volley... _somehow_. There were absolutely no traces left behind by however she'd managed to move, as though she'd simply ceased to exist in one place and come to be in another, without using magic at all. It was strange. And then she'd...

Lily moved over to the spot Badhbhín had stood, just in front of a bookshelf to the right. She closed her eyes, sunk down to Badhbhín's slightly lesser height, focused on the traces of magic slipping against her. Working on instinct, she lifted a finger, started tracing at the air. Runic casting, Badhbhín had been runic casting. She'd only gotten a few strokes off when she'd suddenly stopped, the damage to the wall behind her making it obvious exactly why. Lily followed her impossible instant movement to another spot in the room, started tracing at the air again.

Yes, she had it. Badhbhín had skipped around her attackers, focusing on casting a runic spell to shatter the interdiction over her house, so she could escape. When Lily found the spot she'd left from, she'd winced at the sharp, biting tang of Badhbhín's spell on the air, so thick a dull ache started at her teeth. She'd certainly put a lot of power behind that. Badhbhín had disapparated a moment later, by the feel of it avoiding another attack by inches, and she'd been gone. She thought her attackers might have lingered another moment — it was impossible to tell how long — before vanishing themselves.

It was the attackers that concerned her. Their magic felt... Well. The traces on the paling, the magic they'd used to leave. And the magic they'd used to try to kill Badhbhín was... She'd never seen anything like it. It was a form of transfiguration magic, but it didn't seem to change the composition of what it hit. It instead looked to rearrange the loose bonds between molecules, shredding objects like a microscopically fine net of slicing charms. The damage from the thing was unnerving to look at it, stone walls and wooden shelves and paper and leather and even the glass from a bottle of wine turned to thin, tiny flakes. If this hit someone anywhere near vital organs they'd die instantly, anywhere else they'd quickly bleed to death. And it seemed to be a sustained spell at that. There were odd little bands of it, width about her wrist to the tips of her fingers, curving a few degrees around the room before stopping again. The walls didn't seem to slow the thing down much, arcing right through — she suspected if the attackers hadn't put up their paling, their near misses could have easily killed half the people in the village.

She'd never seen its like. And she recognised the traces on it, glittering white and purple and blue. She knew what had tried to kill Badhbhín.

And she said "what" because they were _definitely_ not human.

That this Badhbhín Nic Dhuibhshíthe had even survived only made Lily suspect again her guess of the woman's identity was very much correct. Which...

Unless she was very much mistaken, three Elder Fae had tried to assassinate the Morrígan.

She had absolutely no idea what to think about that.

After only about fifteen minutes in the house, she was walking out again, moving to join the three she'd left behind. The local man was still giving her a hesitant sort of look, but she ignored that for now. To Mather, she asked, 'You wouldn't happen to have an empty vial?'

'Oh, er...' He searched his pockets for a moment, finally handing her a glass vial. Lily focused for a moment, employing a mind magic trick Sev had taught her decades ago, before putting a finger to her forehead, drawing off a thick tendril of shimmering silver. She deposited the memory into the vial and sealed it, the liquid tendril expanding into a gas, uniformly filling the small space allowed it. Mather took the vial back when she handed it to him, giving it an odd look. 'What is this?'

'My best guess at a reconstruction of the incident.' It had taken some work with Sev to figure out how to make pensieve-worthy memories of events that had never happened, or at least that they hadn't personally witnessed, but they'd gotten it. She even included her own commentary, and a copy of the traces she'd seen all over the room. There was a reason they'd sent for her, after all. 'You'll want to bring that to Director Bones right away.'

Mather blinked at her, looking surprised. Even Fenwick looked temporarily distracted from the low-burning animosity he'd been sitting on the whole time. 'Why the Director?'

Lily turned to the local man, whose face was now twisted with a worried scowl. 'Correct me if I'm wrong — my Gaelic isn't very good — but Badhbhín Nic Dhuibhshíthe literally means "little crow, daughter of the black peace," right?' The man said nothing, just stared at her, his eyes narrowing a little. 'If I promised not to try to harm her, would you confirm Badhbhín is the Morrígan?'

The local man just kept staring at her, but both the patrolmen let out only slightly different noises of shock and disbelief. 'The– The _Night Queen_ was _here_?' Mather gave the vial of memories still in his hand a wary, almost terrified look.

'Unless I read it wrong, three Elder Fae, probably paladins from the Court of the Sun, were sent to assassinate her.' She turned back to the local man, tried to turn her voice as reassuring as she possibly could while talking about the _Queen of fucking Nightmares_. 'She survived, by the way. She broke their paling stopping her from leaving, apparated away. I don't want to harm Lady Badhbhín—' She'd hesitated an instant addressing her like that, but she couldn't think of any better way of referring to her that didn't sound at least a little ridiculous. '—and I'm not sure I could if I even tried. But this attempt on her life by Elder Fae could be... Well, it could be very bad news. There is a possibility this is only an early indication of worse things to come. I _need_ to talk to her, to ask what she knows.' Lily did her absolute best not to sound _too_ terrified at the prospect of sitting down to have a conversation with the bloody Morrígan.

She had the sudden urge to giggle at the idea of the Morrígan passing out sweets to children, as she _apparently_ had made the habit of. Stop, stop, pay attention.

While the patrolmen kept muttering to themselves, the local man just stared at her, eyes hard and reluctant, biting his lip. Finally he sighed, lifting one hand to rub at his forehead. 'I don't know how to get in contact with her. She... She's very private. She prefers to be left alone.' He hesitated for an instant, before adding, 'You're sure she's okay?'

That was sort of odd, that he was so concerned for one of the most universally feared immortals in the history of the world, but, well, Lily guessed it was possible her nasty reputation was exaggerated. As she knew from her own reputation, that did happen sometimes. 'She escaped from here. Whether other Fae have caught up with her elsewhere in the hours since, I can't say for sure. But I'd wager she's fine. It is very possible that, much like you, the Fae have no clue where to look for her next.'

The man nodded, looking strangely relieved.

That was all they'd needed her for, Lily knew. She'd send a letter to Amelia later, just to make sure she knew she'd taken care of it as requested. But she had one more thing she wanted to do before letting the issue go, focusing on personal things instead. It was a Saturday afternoon. She'd probably be home.

Lily had been to where she was going twice before, so it was a simple matter to shadow-walk to the compound of a very particular clan. This was one of the larger such compounds, larger than the village she'd just left, large enough they had a heavily enchanted wooden wall surrounding the place, impressive wards throwing rainbow sparks under the sun. Lily walked up to the gate, where she was immediately met by a younger man in brown leathers and a black cloak, his wand already drawn if not quite aimed at her. Before he could say anything, Lily whipped out her own wand, ignoring the way he tensed, and flipped it around in her hand with a flick of her wrist, holding it out to him handle-first.

She might not know many of the traditions of the Gaelic Common Houses, but she'd picked up this little ritual. Generally, strangers weren't allowed to carry weapons into the home of another clan — back before the Statute, swords and spears and such would be confiscated before people were let in, but the matter of wands and staves and shorter blades, as they had other, non-violent uses, was somewhat more complicated. The person in her position would usually offer to surrender their potential weapon, just to be polite, and whoever was representing the host clan, this young man in this case, would give it back and let her in, with the understanding she wouldn't use it to hurt anyone. By agreement with the Wizengamot and Ministry, she didn't technically have to do this, they would have to let her in no matter what if she asked, but by offering she was indicating she was here on personal business, despite the uniform, and had no intention of harming anyone.

Of course, she still theoretically _could_ curse or arrest someone, if she wanted to. But she'd rather not start a blood feud with the Ó Ailbhes of all people, thank you.

The man gave her a long, searching look, before slipping his own wand away, taking hers, flipping it around in his hand much like she had, then handing it back. 'Can we help you, Dame Evans?'

Lily blinked at him for a second. This boy had to be the _first_ person to ever call her that. Hadn't expected that. 'Er, it's nothing serious. I'd just like a quick word with Síomha Raghnaill. She's not in trouble,' she added when the man tensed. 'I just learned something I think she should know. It'll only take a minute.'

The man hesitated for a long moment, staring at her with narrowed eyes, before letting out a little sigh. 'All right. Follow me.'

The Ó Ailbhe compound was far more active than the village she'd just left. As the guard led her through, she caught glimpses of people through windows, chatting and laughing, a few kneazles slinking about here and there, she was nearly trampled by a waist-high dog charging by. She couldn't help a smirk at the sight of a group of young children, most probably between seven and ten, playing around with a football in an open square in the middle — she wouldn't be surprised if most kids from Noble Houses didn't even know what football was. Before too long, she was led to a house, set in a string with a few other identical ones, sharing a wall to the left and the right, symbols she didn't recognise painted on the wall and porch in red and white. The man left her there, eyes communicating an unspoken warning to behave herself.

She almost had to smile at that.

It wasn't hard to find the enchantment on the door, the magical equivalent of a doorbell. Lily tripped the thing with a glance, settled in to wait, ignoring the curious stares she was getting from a few older mages across the street.

She was only standing there maybe thirty seconds before the door was open, barely half way, only enough for the occupant to be fully visible without showing much of anything inside. She recognised the thin-faced, sharp-eyed, black-haired woman as Síomha Ní Ailbhe after only a second. Apparently, the younger sorceress — if she excluded Dora, who was an enormous cheater, Síomha was at the moment the only widely-acknowledged sorceress younger than Lily in all of a Britain, in fact — recognised Lily just as quickly, eyes narrowing at her. 'Lily Evans Black. To what do I owe the pleasure?'

Lily hesitated for a moment. She still hadn't quite decided how she wanted to go about this. 'I need to get a message to someone. I was hoping you could relay it for me.'

That didn't seem to make Síomha any less suspicious. 'Why me?'

'Could we speak inside?'

'I'm not inclined to invite an Auror into my home without good reason, no.'

Lily sighed, shook her head to herself. Oh well. She glanced over her shoulder, with a quick twitch of power brought a privacy paling up around them — Síomha twitched at the wandless magic, but didn't speak or move. Lily turned back to face her, and decided to just get right to the point. She remembered Síomha was direct, she'd probably appreciate it. 'I need to speak with the Night Queen.'

For long seconds, Síomha just stared at her, face blank, unmoving save for the barest twitch in her eye. 'I'm not sure why you think I could help you with that.'

'Don't play dumb.'

'Why, Dame Black, whatever do you mean?'

Lily sighed again. She just had to be difficult, didn't she? 'Are you or are you not her daughter?'

Síomha gave an easy shrug, but not easy enough — Lily didn't miss the slight annoyed tension about her. 'Not so far as I know.'

'Er.' Well. Honestly, Lily hadn't expected that. Granted, Lily had thought Síomha would deny any relation at first, as she always did, but Lily could almost always tell when people were lying to her, and Síomha wasn't. The Morríghan really wasn't her mother. Or, to be more precise, Síomha truly believed she wasn't. Just to be sure, she asked, 'Really?'

Letting out a long, annoyed sigh, her voice low and scathing, Síomha said, ' _Yes_ , really. I know those rumours have been around since I was a child, but I have _no idea_ where they came from. I _don't know_ who my birth parents are, I have _never met_ the Night Queen, and I wouldn't have the _first clue_ how to get into contact with her. Not that I'm much inclined to try — I would prefer to avoid immortal dark witches if I can help it. So, no, I can't help you.

'If that was all, Dame Black?'

* * *

Before Black had even stepped off her front porch, Síomha slammed her door closed, cursing under her breath.

By the time she'd made it halfway back to her sitting room, rubbing irritably at her face, she'd calmed down enough to regret how harshly she'd spoken to the woman. She just hadn't been thinking very clearly. She'd been so much more powerful than everyone around her for nearly as long as she could remember she'd gotten sort of used to it — these days, any time she was around a sorceress or sorcerer more powerful than herself she couldn't help feeling somewhat on edge. It _didn't help_ that Black had come for the _sole purpose_ of bringing up more of that _same shite_...

She really had no idea where that rumour had come from. She'd first heard it when she'd been, what, seven or eight or so, just barely started at _an Ollscoil_ , and it'd followed her ever since. For as long as she could remember she'd known she'd been adopted, so she'd even asked her mum and dad almost right away if there were any truth to it. As far as they knew, and as far as she could tell after looking into it a couple times out of idle curiosity, there wasn't.

Of course, it was very possible she hadn't gone _that_ far out of her way to deny it. Even if it weren't true, people perhaps wondering if it _might_ be true was very useful. At the least, she would expect it could get people to second-guess themselves before doing anything too harsh to her.

Síomha knew the legends of the Night Queen as well as anyone else. Doing anything at all to harm _her_ daughter was monumentally idiotic. If the stories could be believed, she'd once wiped out an entire clan just for _mildly insulting_ one of her grandchildren.

So. Useful.

But no matter how useful the suggestion the Night Queen might be her mother could be, it still _annoyed_ her when people acted as though it were definitively true. And going so far as to ask her to pass on a message! Ridiculous. Honestly, if she really were the Night Queen's daughter, if she could just go talk to her whenever she wanted, she knew several inconvenient arseholes she would have asked her to either intimidate or eliminate by now. Or, hell, if she knew it to be true for certain, she'd probably go around bragging about it. Just because she knew it would terrify people.

You do _not_ fuck with anyone or anything belonging to the Night Queen. Everyone knows that.

So, really, it should be _bloody obvious_ she had no way to contact her, because _anyone_ who could would have—

A couple steps into her sitting room, Síomha froze. The room was completely how she'd left it — the plush furniture in the same places, books still on their shelves, not a single page or quill or trinket on her desk out of place, the fire still crackling merrily in the hearth, her coffee still sitting steaming on the table next to her chair, her book splayed over the armrest where she'd left it. Nothing had been moved, nothing had been removed.

But a few things had been added. A bottle of wine was sitting on the floor, next to it a few unfamiliar books, a couple leather tubes cracked and faded with age. Sitting on the sofa within arm's reach of the bottle was an unfamiliar woman, casually leaning against the armrest, her bare feet on the empty cushion next to her. A book open on her tilted legs, a half-empty glass of wine cradled in the fingers of one hand. She'd guess the girl was maybe twenty years old, twenty-five at the most, wearing muggle jeans and a plain white tee shirt, shoulder-length hair a solid black carelessly disheveled. Síomha was temporarily distracted by the scar — she couldn't see quite the whole thing from here, but the thin, jagged, purple line obviously split at least her upper lip, stretching across her cheek nearly to her ear, marring what would otherwise be a beautiful if severe face. It must have been a seriously nasty curse that had done that, she couldn't imagine any young woman would have left that there otherwise.

Before she could recover from the unexplained appearance of a stranger in her own home, the woman spoke, slightly archaic-sounding Gaelic in a smooth, low voice. 'Why, don't just stand there and stare.' She gestured, a single finger lifting from her wineglass, pointing at the chair Síomha had left only a minute ago. 'Go on, sit.'

Being ordered around in her own home snapped her out of it. Not even bothering to reach for her wand, Síomha let the lightning filling her veins boil to the surface, twisted it into the most powerful black stunning charm she could manage, poured it out to—

Síomha gasped at the sudden avalanche of frigid, unyielding magic slamming down around her, suffocating her stunner before it could even leave her skin. It tightened further, forcing itself hard against her, until her power had been shoved back under her skin, in an instant leaving her dizzy, cold, and helpless. She doubted she'd even be able to use her wand until she was released.

What the fuck was _that?!_

The strange woman hardly moved, only her eyes flicking up to meet hers. Síomha flinched at her gaze, black eyes all too solid, sharp, freezing. 'There's no need to be _rude_ , child.' Despite herself, the calm disapproval on the younger, impossibly powerful woman's voice had Síomha feeling inexplicably sheepish. 'Now. Sit.'

Well. She didn't figure there was much else she could do. Her movements awkward and wooden, she stumbled over to her chair, knees so unsteady she could barely walk. Black was more powerful than her, yes, which had just made her slightly uncomfortable. What _this_ woman had just done... Once Síomha had bonelessly flopped into her chair, she reached for her coffee, to hopefully work out a bit of the sudden dry tightness in her throat. She had to pause to take a breath when she saw how badly her hand was shaking.

'Relax, child,' the woman said, her voice slightly softer than it'd been a second ago. 'If I intended to harm you you'd already be dead.'

Síomha had to hold back hysterical giggles. Well, _yeah_ , she could believe _that_. She took another moment to breathe, forcing down the panic clawing at her throat, before finally feeling capable of picking up her coffee. 'How did you get in here?' she asked, slightly impressed with herself at how almost normal her voice sounded.

The woman let out a light snort, her messy hair shifting slightly as she shook her head. 'No wards laid by mortal men can stop me from going where I wish to be.' And she turned a page in her book, took a sip from her glass.

That... That was a bit scary. Especially because Síomha felt, in that moment, that she could totally believe that. The way she'd just suffocated Síomha's magic like that, at the moment she'd believe this woman in front of her could do almost anything. She took a long, shaky breath, forcing herself with iron will to not blither like a child. 'Okay. What do you want?'

'I found myself in need of a new place to sleep. So long as I was at it, I thought I would keep an eye on you. I am not sure if you are in danger, at least not yet, but I would rather err on the side of caution.'

'In danger from whom?' Really, if she were in imminent danger from anyone, she would think the most likely source was this woman herself. She was starting to suspect this woman was older than she looked — with her use of the word "mortal" like that, quite likely _much_ older. Which she would really rather not think about if she could help it. She'd avoided any likelihood of running into the few immortal mages in the world quite on purpose.

'I was attacked at my home. Once I was sure I'd evaded them, I checked in with an old friend of mine and she informed me I was not the first. Agents of the Court of the Sun are doing their best to eliminate the most powerful of humanity — none of us are sure exactly why, but I can make educated guesses. It is quite possible, after disposing of as many of us as they can get their vile hands on, they'll move on to the mortal sorcerers. I would not be surprised if you are on their list.' The woman took another sip, shrugged. 'They are not likely to move on to you for some years yet, but I thought I'd keep an eye on you anyway, just to be sure.'

Well. It sounded like Síomha hadn't been wrong with her guess the woman was immortal. That was... Wait. Wait a second. A young-looking immortal witch, pale skin and black hair, speaking archaic-sounding Gaelic, with a prominent scar on her face... 'You're... You're not...?'

The woman glanced up at her again, the slightest traces of an amused smirk pulling at her split lips. 'You're going to have to finish that sentence for me.'

Síomha swallowed, set down her quivering coffee before she could spill any, did her absolute best to force herself to remain calm. 'You're not the—' Síomha cut off before she could say _Queen of Nightmares_. Somehow, that seemed like an inappropriate moniker to use with the woman herself. '—ah, Night Queen.'

Still looking faintly amused, the woman said, 'Technically, if you look at various orders of succession around Europe, Africa, and Asia, both present and historical, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm the rightful queen of quite a few places. The official rules almost invariably fail to account for people who don't age.' She turned back to her book, taking another calm sip. 'But yes, I know what you intend to ask with that title, and I am she.'

Okay. Okay. The Queen of Nightmares was sitting on her couch. No big deal.

Síomha had to close her eyes, breathe slowly through her nose, teeth painfully clenched about her bottom lip, forcibly gathering herself for some seconds, just to stop herself from breaking into hysterical giggles or terrified gibbering — not sure which, honestly.

When she finally thought she could speak without making a total idiot of herself, she opened her eyes again, turned to _the bloody Morríoghan_ sitting on her couch, holy fuck. 'Okay. Okay.' Huh, look at that, her voice was impressively steady. And by _impressively steady_ she meant she wasn't stammering incomprehensibly. 'Why are you here?'

The Night Queen blinked, glanced up from her book to give a Síomha a faintly baffled look. 'I did just explain that.'

'No, I mean—' Síomha leaned forward in her chair, elbows on her knees, rubbing at her face with both hands. She was so inexplicably exhausted. She was having the weirdest day... 'Why are you _here_? You can't go back home, okay, but why come _here_? You said you wanted to keep an eye on me, but why do you care?'

An eyebrow slowly raised, the immortal witch looking at Síomha like she were a complete idiot, like she should know the answer to that.

And suddenly she did.

'No, no, no...' She... No, she couldn't really be saying what Síomha knew she was saying. That, that was insane. It wasn't true. It couldn't be. 'I'm not... You're not... No, that can't be true.'

'You are. I am. And yes, it can.'

All her breath leaving her in a sudden rush, Síomha collapsed in her chair, both hands covering her face, feeling suddenly spent. Strangely empty, the moment floating away from her, like she were suddenly half-asleep, or just drunk off her arse.

Somehow, over all the years she'd heard the rumours, over and over and over, somehow it'd never occurred to her they could actually be _true_. At least, never occurred to her seriously. It'd been sort of a fun thing to wonder about when she'd been a lot younger, yes, but it'd never been real to her. It was just a story. The Morríoghan was just a story. She'd never... It wasn't supposed to be _true_.

But it was true. It wasn't just a story. The Night Queen was sitting on her couch right now. And they weren't just rumours. She hadn't explicitly confirmed it, hadn't said the words directly, but she might as well have.

She had absolutely no idea how to feel about this. At all.

After a few moments of just sitting there in a daze, growing gradually more dizzy as her thin, shallow breaths starved her, she snapped out of it. It started as an odd tightness behind her eyes, quickly blossoming into raging fire in her chest and throat, her magic again crackling in her veins, chaotically fierce. She seriously doubted she could push past whatever was holding her magic in, so instead it just ran through her, furious sparks setting her muscles to shaking, her bones to aching. She turned to glare up at the other woman, a little voice in the back of her head saying it was probably a bad idea to yell at _the fucking Queen of Nightmares_ , but she was too angry to pay attention to it right now. 'You've got to be _fucking kidding me_.'

The woman raised an eyebrow at her, looking nothing more than faintly surprised. 'No?'

'If you're really my—' She hesitated over the word, grinding her teeth, but there was really no need to hold that back, she was already shouting at someone who could turn her to ash at a blink, no point in being shy now. '—my mother, where the _bloody fuck_ have you _been?_ Why am I just learning this now?!'

If anything, the way she stared calmly back at Síomha was just making her more angry. 'I have long since forgotten how it feels to be a normal human being, much less a child. At the present time, I am not emotionally equipped to perform as a mother. So I instead decided to leave you with people far more suited. I intentionally picked a clan I knew to be comparatively recent descendants of mine — placing my blood with my blood seemed appropriate. I couldn't think what else to do. It was best for you.'

'Oh, that is such _shite!'_ Before Síomha was even entirely aware of what she was doing, she had sprung up to her feet, glaring down at the immortal witch, her fists clenched at her side. 'What, am I supposed to believe, however long you've lived, and you've never learned to cast a _bloody contraceptive charm?!'_

The woman let out a short, exasperated sigh, rolling her eyes — the sight of _the Morríoghan_ of all people _rolling her eyes_ was so silly Síomha was momentarily distracted from her fury. 'Do learn how to control yourself, girl. I would suggest you not assume I am quite so heartless as you are implying — the situation is rather more complicated than you know.' Síomha opened her mouth to snarl some sort of insult back at that, which was probably a monumentally stupid idea, but the woman cut her off with a harsh glare, Síomha flinching despite herself. 'If you _must_ know, I felt no particular need to take any preventative measures, considering I haven't had sex since, oh, Eighteen Fifty-Six, I believe. It does get boring eventually, you see.'

Síomha's fury abruptly shifted into confusion, leaving her feeling oddly unbalanced. 'I... What? How does that...?'

The woman shrugged a little, turning back to her book. 'For reasons I have never understood, roughly once a century I will find myself with child, whether I have had any recent sexual contact or not. It has been happening for longer than I can remember — the earliest incidence I can clearly remember it was something I was already familiar with, despite my inability now to recall any prior. Actually,' she said, cocking her head a little, 'I am not the only one I know it happens to. Not all immortal women, but some of us.'

...

So... Not only was she truly the daughter of the Night Queen of Ireland, but she was _only_ the daughter of the Night Queen of Ireland. She didn't have a father, apparently. That...

Okay, she knew it was possible to have children without a man being involved at any stage of the process. It wasn't that hard to do, so not hard there were even multiple ways to do it. She herself had twice aided one of her cousins and her wife — they were not legally married, of course, but everyone considered them so anyway — in a ritual to create children of both their blood in the womb of one. There were variations to have boys too, though those did require blood from a male relative. She'd even read of a ritual before that would make a woman pregnant without any contribution from anyone else, a child of her alone, though she'd never heard or read of any specific times it had been used.

But all of those needed to be done _on purpose_. They took effort, a conscious decision. The idea that it could happen _completely unintentionally_...

She hadn't known that was even possible.

The strength flooding out of her with her anger, Síomha collapsed back into her chair, staring blankly at the wall. Nope. Too much nonsense going on in a single conversation. She was too mentally exhausted to deal with this right now. 'I...' She sighed, rubbing at her oddly numb face. 'Fine. You can stay, whatever.'

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw _her bloody mother_ was smirking, if only slightly. 'Thank you, Síomha. Not that you could have done anything about it, of course. I've been in this room for hours already, you know. I would have revealed myself earlier, but I suspected someone might come by, and I thought it best you be able to tell them you knew nothing without having to lie.'

Of course she had. Síomha sighed — though whether it was exasperation, or relief as she felt whatever spell that was holding her magic in abruptly lift, she couldn't say.

'Try not to be too uncomfortable.' The woman calmly turned another page in her book, looking for anything as though they hadn't just had a life-altering conversation. Well, Síomha guessed it was only life-altering for one of them. 'I'll stay out of your way as much as you like. I can remain silent and invisible, if that is what you wish. If you are interested, there are magics you would benefit from learning, and I would be glad to teach you. But I'm afraid I'm good for little else. This is the first time I've even spoken to one of my mortal children in centuries. And I would prefer you keep my identity to yourself — we wouldn't want it to get back to the Fae.'

Well. Fine. Okay. She was momentarily embarrassed at the thought that she might have _her bloody mother_ following her everywhere, and considered requesting she leave her be whenever she happened to be with one of her lovers. But it wasn't like Síomha would even notice she was there if she didn't allow it. And, come to think of it, the woman was thousands of years old, Síomha really doubted she gave a damn. 'You said you had educated guesses.'

The woman blinked, glanced up at her. 'Hmm?'

'Why the Fae were killing immortals. You said you had educated guesses.'

She seemed somewhat surprised by the change of topic, but she answered easily enough. Looked almost relieved, actually. 'The Fae have plans for this world. And they are nearing fruition.' She looked back to her book, but it looked to Síomha like her eyes were unfocused, gazing past the pages. 'Do not be surprised, child, if you look around ten years from now and do not recognise what you see.'

That made no sense at all. 'Don't the Fae have _thousands_ of worlds of their own? What possible interest could they have in ours?'

'That's just the thing.' The immortal sorceress glanced up at her, a sad sort of smile, so faint Síomha could hardly see it, pulling at her lips. 'You see, it was never really ours.'

* * *

Elīc (IPA: /ɛ˦.ɺi:c˥˩/, roughly "eh-leek") — _Short for Ñaçelīc. The name previously appeared in chapter 27, though the character herself didn't._

Badhbhín Nic Dhuibhshíthe — _Roughly "_ _ **buy**_ _-veen nick ghoov-_ _ **hee**_ _-huh" (_ /'bˠəi.vʲi:nʲ nʲɪc ,ɣʊvʲ.'hi:.hə/ _), though I am guessing more than I would like. I mean, pretty sure whoever came up with the name "Duibhshíthe" was trying to torture people, god damn._

Bakin-Sēt — _Just a reminder, this is the name of the city the "temple" Lily is studying at is in._

Ó Ailbhes — _This is an incorrect plural, by the way. It's not a mistake, it's wrong on purpose. Lily did the same thing back in chapter 26, actually (_ " _[t]he Mac Dhubhghaills and the Mac Eoghains")._

an Ollscoil — _Ollscoil Choiteann Caoimhe Ní Bhláithín, a school of magic in Ireland._

Morríoghan — _This is just Morríghan, spelling slightly corrected for modern Irish orthography, which Síomha, as a Gaelic speaker, actually uses. I'm pretty sure that's right, but since Irish uses a different word for "queen" now, no guarantees. In case any nerds out there are wondering, there's no fada on "mor" on purpose._

* * *

 _I hate insomnia so much. I've been looking forward to writing this chapter for months, and then when I actually get to it I'm so sleepy I can barely think straight and it comes out all bluh. Oh well._

 _I am interested in finding a...well, "beta" isn't quite the right word. I could use someone's help in both planning and presenting the more emotion...related...stuff. Mostly just someone to bounce character development -type ideas off of, to read bits of my shit and tell me whether or not the emotional appeal I'm aiming for works. I have very serious trouble understanding that kind of thing, and I've been concerned things I've been doing and things I have planned don't/won't work for a while now, and it would be helpful. Someone reading both my fics would be ideal, as I could use the same thing for both, I was gonna make the same request on the other next week anyway. To anyone who volunteers, I apologise ahead of time for being as cold and empty inside as the void of space._

 _Until next time,  
~Wings_


	32. Interlude — Queen of Nightmares

_Bluuuhhhh..._

 _Sort of unusual chapter here. It was fun for me, at least. Here we go._

* * *

 _Polesia, Summer_

* * *

Icǰe crept along the edge of the slowly moving river, eyes flicking along the trees to both sides.

Really, with how thick the trees were, her ears were almost more useful than her eyes. Not that there weren't distractions there, either — the river may be calm this far down in the valley, but it wasn't silent, the steady breeze had the trees chattering, birds noisily chittering. At least Ninze had the dogs quiet. But even through all that noise she could pick out things she couldn't see. Rustling of grasses and bushes on the other side of the river she thought was probably a group of beavers. A bit into the trees she heard the familiar sounds of a deer plodding along with a couple fawns, dashing away as she passed, probably scared off by the dogs with Ninze some distance behind her. Far off, the barely discernible sound of voices, laughter. She must be getting close to the edge now.

Icǰe, stopped frowning at the leaves and buds of a tree just next to her. That was a pear tree. She loosed the tension in her bow, stepped through the thin bushes lining the river to the trunk, made two quick circles around it, eyes flicking up and down along its length. Once she was sure it was unmarked, she trapped her readied arrow with a finger, the other hand pulling her knife from where it hung at the small of her back. The process quick from much practice, she sheared a patch of bark off the tree, carved a simplified image of a bird and two arrows into the wood, claiming the tree for her tribe. Then she returned the knife to its place, and moved back for the river.

Ninze had caught up while she'd been occupied, only a few steps behind. The younger boy jumped as she reappeared, the fangs hanging at his neck clinking, awkwardly spinning to point his spear in her general direction. The trio of dogs at his sides though, the shaggy things topping the boy's waist, barely reacted, having smelled her coming. Ninze relaxed after a moment, recognising her. His mouth opened to say something, but Icǰe cut him off with a gesture, glancing the direction of the voices. Ninze looked confused for a second, then nodded.

Readying her bow again, Icǰe turned and started off, shaking her head in exasperation.

Only a few minutes' walk, not far ahead, the river widened out, feeding into a pond, before extending out again in a slightly different direction and, Icǰe knew, eventually trailing out of the valley. She'd been to the pond before, she thought a couple years ago — the roots of these tall skinny plants that grew in it could be made into a paste that had a few different uses, they'd marked it last they were here. Unfortunately, she didn't think they'd be able to again.

Just a short distance up the river from the pond she came upon them. One one each side of the river, a log jammed into the wet soil, draped over each one somewhat aged-looking wolf pelts, beads sewn into the ears, grasses looped through near the bottom. Crouching somewhat lower to the ground, eyes flicking over her surroundings for any signs of human movement, Icǰe crept closer to the figure, close enough she could reach out and touch the hanging grass if she chose. She didn't need to to know it was still damp, vibrant with life, only recently placed.

Damn. Some other tribe had gotten here first this year. Trying to snatch any of those roots from the pond would be risky. It did depend somewhat on the temperament of exactly who they were dealing with — most were perfectly fine sharing resources, could be bartered with, but there were a few bands that reacted violently to intrusions. Without knowing which kind, it probably wasn't worth it.

She ran her tongue around her teeth for a moment, frowning at the warning suspended above her, tufts of fur fluttering softly in the breeze. They'd been moving slowly this year, more incapacitated than she could ever remember with too many young children at once, her father and a few others taking sick. They'd fallen behind.

Not so far it was a fatal mistake, she didn't think, but this was not going to be a fun year.

Shaking her head to herself, she turned to face back. And blinked. What were _they?_ Ninze was some distance behind her, mirroring her crouch somewhat more awkwardly. And the dogs around him had gone oddly calm, heads turned behind him, tilted slightly with pleasant curiosity. And standing a short distance behind Ninze were...

Well, Icǰe wasn't sure what they were. They looked sort of like people, the same general shape, but not quite right, some places longer and some places thicker. They were tall, very tall, and so very pale, white as snow, they almost seemed to glow, hair a yellow as bright as the sun. They were dressed strangely, some filmy material lighter and thinner than anything she'd ever seen, in jagged patterns of bright colours, covering nearly their entire bodies from shoulder to knee. They were very odd, she'd never seen anything like them before, and for a few seconds she couldn't think to do anything but stare.

One of them pointed at Icǰe, gave the other a look. The other nodded. Then, the one closer to Ninze, just a couple steps behind him, lifted a hand a little above her shoulder, open palm to the ground, then brought it falling down.

Right before her eyes, Ninze and the three dogs fell to pieces. Sliced apart with a dozen invisible blades, smoother and easier than any cut she'd ever seen, dead before they'd even hit the ground, blood and viscera spilling in a jumbled pile.

Without even thinking, in a smooth, familiar motion, Icǰe drew back, aimed, and released, the arrow immediately darting off for the nearer stranger, the one that had just, _somehow_ , killed Ninze, unerringly for its heart. Or, where the heart was on a person, anyway. She slunk a few steps to the side even as she readied another arrow, not taking her eyes of the pair.

So she saw as, with nothing more than a flick of a finger, her arrow was batted out of the air before it'd even reached the stranger, flipping over into the river.

That was...

One of the strangers suddenly vanished, and she heard a light snapping, a fluttering just behind her, and she whirled around, dropping her plainly useless bow, her knife again in her hand, slashing out as she spun to face the stranger just—

A pulse of red-purple light crashed over her, and Icǰe knew no more.

* * *

 _Polesia, Spring_

* * *

Icǰe stared down at the sight before her, a warm smile at her lips.

They were in the middle of the clearing her tribe had decided to stay in this summer. At some point along the line, she couldn't remember exactly when, they'd started setting up their own shelter. Old deer hide stretched over sturdy sticks, for the most part, but a few people had taken to closing off a little area with gathered wood and grasses. She was almost positive this was new. It was getting increasingly difficult for her to remember her early life, but she didn't think even the simpler tents were something they'd done when she'd been growing up. And since magic was involved in the process, however minimally, she was just short of certain it was something she'd personally had a hand in figuring out. She couldn't remember doing it, though.

The clearing was mostly calm for the moment. Some people were off on various tasks, but most everyone was in, working at one thing or another, or just idly chatting. Or idly _not_ chatting, as it were — she'd been somewhat surprised a couple minutes ago to stumble across one of her great-granddaughters and another girl all over each other, she somehow hadn't known about them before. Because apparently it wasn't even close to the first time, the girl's mother had given her a very odd look when she'd commented.

Or...were both girls descendants of hers? She was honestly having trouble keeping track by this point, and she hadn't felt like interrupting them to ask.

She'd just been walking along, contemplating making some visits to a few neighbouring tribes, when she'd found Ayis, sitting on the ground glaring at a little pile of twigs. Ayis was her fourteenth child, her youngest, only eleven or twelve winters having passed, and also her most unusual. For the most part, Icǰe had known who the fathers of all her children were, or could at least narrow it down. All except Ayis. She hadn't lain with anyone in years — at some point, she'd started feeling a bit odd about it, with how much older she was than everyone else, and that urgency she vaguely remembered had seemingly burned out by now — and had been a bit confused one day when she'd realised she was with child. She had no idea how it'd happened. The rest of her tribe, who were well aware of the situation, had decided it was another of those magic things she did, that Ayis was a special child, and Icǰe couldn't really disagree.

And Ayis did have her magic as well, but that wasn't much of a surprise — all of her children did, and all but two of their children, and almost all of theirs. Which was interesting because, as far as she knew, it wasn't something anyone else had had before herself. She didn't even really know how it'd happened. She was pretty sure it wasn't something she'd always been able to do, because she remembered just waking up one day, and feeling somehow... _more_. Like there was something about her that hadn't been before, at once outside and part of her. It had taken her a while, but she'd eventually figured out she could make things happen if she willed them. Figuring out how to get a specific thing to happen could take a while, and she had exhausted herself more times than she could count, but there didn't seem to be any limits to it. If she wanted something badly enough, it happened.

And, for some reason, a few years after she'd figured out she could make things happen, she'd stopped getting older. Just, stopped. She didn't know why. And while most of her descendants had gotten her magic, they all grew old and died normally. Or mostly: she was certain they lived somewhat longer, somehow resistant to injury and hardly ever fell ill, but they still succumbed in time. For some reason, it was only her. She didn't know what to think about it, most of the time. She had the feeling she was the only person ever to welcome their great-great-grandchild into the world. It was weird.

Her tribe were positive she had been granted these gifts by something, something greater and beyond them, something that had chosen her for some purpose. Icǰe couldn't really disagree. She couldn't think of a better explanation.

So she didn't have to ask, stumbling on this sight, to know what Ayis was trying to do. She'd seen it many times. So, without even announcing her presence — she was rather certain Ayis was so focused she hadn't noticed her coming — Icǰe drew up that thing within her, hot and writhing with restrained motion, and passed her hand over the sticks. They immediately crackled and snapped, steam wisping off into the air. Another wave of her hand smothered the fire she'd just started, the wood now dry, far easier for Ayis's attempts to catch.

A look of glee crossed over Ayis's face at first, before quickly turning to confusion. Holding down the urge to laugh at her daughter, Icǰe said, 'Those wouldn't have caught very well, even if you were doing it right. They were too green.'

Ayis started at the first syllable to leave her mouth, then grew increasingly sheepish as she went. 'I'm sorry, Mother,' she muttered. 'I'm know I'm not supposed to try new things on my own, but I saw J̌echi playing with fire, and...'

'It's fine, child.' Icǰe walked around, coming to sit on the grass behind her, sliding forward until Ayis was sitting between her legs, Icǰe's hands on her shoulders. 'Don't focus too hard on what you're trying to change. That's an easy mistake to make, but the power is not _there_ , it's in _you_ ,' she said, shaking Ayis's shoulders just a little, 'so it is inside yourself you have to look.' She reached around, took the girl's right hand with hers, moved it over the sticks. Her left hand hovering over Ayis's heart, she whispered into her ear, 'Reach deep inside, feel it rise. Don't ask it to listen to you, don't wish that it will do what you want, but _know_ that it will. It is yours, it is a part of you, no different than the fingers of your hand. And push it out, into those sticks, so that _they_ are part of you, and will do what you will. Don't believe it. _Know_ it.'

For long moments, nothing happened. Nothing on the outside, anyway. Pressed right up against her, Icǰe could feel reverberations from the magic flickering in Ayis, stuttering as she tried to work her will on the world. But she was a quick learner — all of Icǰe's children had been, learning from her tricks it had taken her weeks or months to figure out sometimes in only moments — so it didn't take long. With a shudder of power Icǰe felt as the slightest pressure behind her eyes, a snapping noise so quiet it was almost inaudible, one of the sticks near the little pile caught into tentative flames, the first spark quickly spreading until the whole bundle was burning.

Icǰe was focused tightly enough on the magic flowing in Ayis that she could feel the sudden glee explode in her daughter, pink and yellow lights sparking behind her eyes, sweetness on her tongue. 'I did it!' the girl squealed, practically bouncing in her lap.

Laughing along with Ayis, she wrapped her arms tighter around the girl, pressing her lips to her hair. 'Yes, child, you did. Very clever, you are.' And she was. Icǰe didn't know why, but Ayis seemed to be picking things up quicker than perhaps any of her descendants so far. She'd even made things happen without meaning to any number of times — she wasn't the only to have ever done that, but it did seem to happen more often and more noticeably.

And now her happiness and her pride and her love were shining so brightly, warmer than the summer sun, Icǰe couldn't help but to just sit there, holding her, her lips stretched into an involuntary grin.

They were interrupted only a few minutes later. She felt him coming before he arrived — Educ, one of her grandsons — the worry pouring off of him in waves making him very obvious. And he probably knew that, or at least expected it, since the young man wasn't even surprised in the slightest when she turned over her shoulder to face him before he was quite here. Or, not so young anymore, come to think of it. Educ had nearly-grown children of his own now. It was so hard to keep track sometimes. 'Yes?'

'It's Noya, Mother, he...' Educ trailed off for a moment, frowning somewhere into the distance. The pause gave Icǰe enough time to remember Noya was Educ's eldest. Or, probably his, anyway, it could be hard to know for sure, but she knew they were close in any case. Noya's mother was one of her descendants anyway, just a generation or two further removed, so he was one of hers in any case. But then, most of the tribe was by this point. 'Well, come see.'

If he was this worried, it was definitely worth checking out. Placing a last kiss on Ayis's hair, Icǰe got to her feet, followed Educ off. And froze as soon as she saw what he was obviously talking about. Off some ways into the distance was a wide pillar of smoke, stretching high into the air. Somehow, a significant portion of the forest over there had been set aflame. This time of year, she knew, there was no way that was natural. Their little clearing here wasn't in danger — it was some distance away, and the winds would guide the conflagration to the east, and she and her descendants would be able to push it off anyway. It was still odd. 'I gather Noya is out there.'

'Yes, he went out to gather—'

'I'll find him.' She took a quick glance at Educ, visibly relieved just from her saying that. 'I should be back before nightfall.'

'Thank you, Mother.'

Giving him an easy smile, she drew her magic up again, pushed it into her limbs, and dashed off into the trees toward the distant raging fires with inhuman speed. Noya was young, she knew, and not the most powerful, but he was one of hers, so he shouldn't be hard to track down at all.

This shouldn't take long

* * *

Walking into the clearing they'd made home for this summer, Noya trailing behind her looking rather exhausted, Icǰe came to a sudden stop. And she knew, with horrified certainty, what had happened.

She'd known immediately that fire Noya had been caught up in hadn't been natural, it had to have been set on purpose. It hadn't occurred to her to wonder why. But now she knew. The entire point had been to draw her away from her tribe, if only for a short while. Most of their shelters were knocked over and torn apart, a mess made out of the whole clearing. The whole tribe was gathered here, she could see, and she was instantly relieved at their numbers — a few were missing, she could tell, but not many. It could have been far worse.

She darted over to the gathered people, so quickly she quite nearly disappeared from one place and reappeared in another, her tribe instantly reacting to her presence with gasps and cries of relief. She winced when she saw what they were gathered around: eight of their number, spread out on the ground, bloodied and dead. No, not eight, six — two were still alive, moaning and gasping for breath. Ignoring the voices around her, she moved to kneel by the more injured of the two, a ragged, weeping wound tearing across his stomach, blood pouring around his hands, the barest hints of slick viscera peeking through. She was only slightly surprised to see it was Educ, knowing him he'd almost certainly leapt to fight whoever had attacked.

She was well aware that, before she'd been around, this would be a lethal wound, there would be nothing anyone could do. But there were advantages to being her. Laying her hands against his shuddering flesh, she reached deep within him, grasping not for her power, but yanking his to the surface. She pulled it up into his wound, layering it as thickly as she could, willing it to repair the damage that had been done, to make him whole again. She felt the magic work, and knew he would be fine, a bit of the tension in her shoulders immediately lifting away. It would take a few hours for him to heal himself completely, and he would still be sick from the blood he'd lost, and ravenously hungry, but he'd be fine.

So she moved on to the second. The young woman had an arrow stuck in her shoulder — her people had all been smart enough to not try to remove it without her. This one wasn't one of hers, which made healing her slightly more difficult, but at least she wasn't injured that badly. It only took a few minutes of work to remove the shaft, fill back in the missing tissue, patch it over with fresh skin. But once she was done, Icǰe's skin was tingling, her head light and fuzzy, and she collapsed onto her back right then and there, temporarily exhausted.

It was only a few moments later, the surrounding voices washing over her unheard, that she finally noticed what was missing. She sprung up to sitting, lightning in her veins abruptly burning away the tiredness that had settled over her. 'Ayis?'

'They took a few with them when they left, Mother. We have a few out trying to—'

Whoever was speaking suddenly broke off. Or perhaps Icǰe simply wasn't listening anymore, she wasn't sure. In an instant, so sudden she didn't even feel it coming, rage exploded to life in her, so deep and so intense she didn't know anything else. She was only half-aware of pushing herself to her feet, her tribe around her hastily backing away, faces and spirits filled with mixed horror and awe. The clearing around her, dim with fading evening light, was cast in reds and blacks, seeming darkest nearest her, drained of heat and colour as she felt her veins fill with burning ice.

She didn't know where they were. But she found she didn't need to know.

She didn't know how she got there. But that didn't matter either.

Her rage carried her on black wings, the ground beneath fleeing in terror, green turning to withered brown and frost settling in her wake. In a moment that felt like an eternity, a period of time the length of which she would never know exactly, consumed with thoughtless, frigid fury, she came upon them, fires bright against the night, the air dancing with laughter, and jeering, and _screaming_ —

They had only taken women and girls, she noticed as she found them. Some her descendants, some not. And they were—

And her rage flared ever more powerful than before, until it was all she was, her power and hatred instantly turning the warm night into the coldest of winters, the fires smothered, the foreign tribe around her reacting with incomprehensible noises of anger and fear. She ignored them, and was standing before the man who, until just a second ago, had been forcing her daughter, and he didn't even have time to get all the way to his feet before her hand was around his throat, and he screamed as her magic stung into him without her really meaning it to, the skin around her hand turning pale then blue then white, and he screamed and he screamed as ice plunged through his flesh, into his veins, gurgling and choking into silence as the man gradually crumbled, falling to the ground as a soft, reddened snow.

And he wasn't the only one. Oh, _no_ , she _wasn't finished yet_. She gradually made her way through the people that had been stupid enough to harm what was hers, slapping away their laughable attempts to fight her off, bringing down her fury on one after another. Some were torn apart from within by shards of ice, others were consumed by fires shadowed with her rage, some died convulsing from black lightning crawling over skin. Other she simply ripped into pieces, defenceless against her magic, their blood watering the ground beneath them until the whole clearing was thick with slushy mud. Some tried to escape, running for the trees, but she caught them before they could, incandescent tendrils of hatred yanking them back toward her, pinning them to the ground where she could pick them apart at her leisure.

They had harmed what was hers. And none would survive.

In time, she had no idea how long, she was standing in the center of the clearing, surrounded by ash and frost and corpses hardly recognisable as human, fists clenched at her sides, breath still coming harsh and cold. It hadn't been enough. They were all dead, but it hadn't been enough, her vision was still red and black with rage, and icy lightning was still boiling under her skin, she felt it would tear her apart, it _wasn't enough_ , she wasn't _finished yet_...

She didn't even feel her coming until her arms were wrapped around Icǰe's neck, a warm body pressing against hers. For a moment she reeled with confusion, but the feel of her was too familiar to be lost for long, her warmth and scent she knew intimately, the song of her magic an extension of her own.

Movements slow and unsteady, her arms slithered around Ayis's back, clutching the girl tight against her. Icǰe felt her shuddering, with terror or tears, she wasn't sure which, but either way it shattered the hold her rage had over her, leaving her feeling dizzy and relieved and _tired_ and...

Icǰe sunk to her knees in the frozen dirt, taking Ayis down with her, completely helpless to stop herself from crying into her daughter's muddied hair.

* * *

 _Kallístē, Spring, 3158 BCE_

* * *

Najesa stepped off her little boat onto the dock as it came close enough, stopped and tied it to the waiting stone with a wave of her hand. Without a backward glance, she started up the short length to the shore of the tiny island.

She'd barely even reached the shimmering tile of the courtyard before she was met by the locals. Five of them rushing up to her, wearing an odd uniform of leather armour and silken cloth coloured blue and green in hard jagged lines. Their weapons were already drawn, three spears and two swords pointed in her direction. She wasn't concerned, though. Only one had any power at all, and she was as an ant before a wolf — none of them could do a thing to her.

Before they reached her, she shrugged her bow and quiver off her shoulders, dropped them to the tile, the sword at her hip and knife at the small of her back joining them a second later. The approaching warriors hesitated, obviously uncertain how to react to her disarming herself before even being asked to. Not that she actually needed them, she often carried weapons for appearances' sake more than anything. 'I wish to speak with the Lady of the Palace.' She was rather certain she'd said that right. She'd learned the local language along the way, but she had cheated a bit by peeking into people's heads, so she was pretty sure she was good enough.

For long moments, the women — for they all five were women, she noticed, curious — simply stared at her. What they were looking for, she wasn't certain. It was obvious she wasn't from around here. The people around here had a far darker, bronzish tone about them than anyone where she was from, and while she had noticed a few pale-skinned people like her about there weren't many. And she was dressed unlike anyone around as well. She'd known it would be warmer the further south she went, so she'd set off wearing what she usually did only in the middle of summer, little more than an embroidered breechcloth and the long-familiar sashes about her waist and shoulders, tinkling with dozens of little figures in metal and glass. Not that she expected locals to recognise what was considered a status symbol with her own people for what it was. She probably just looked exceedingly strange to them.

Just as she was wondering whether she should risk a compulsion, their weapons were lifted away, the center one nodding at her. 'Follow me.' And she turned to lead the way off. Najesa glanced at her own discarded arms for a moment, before shaking her head and following. She was a guest, after all. For all she knew, entering this sort of place armed was extremely rude. Some other cultures could be sensitive about that kind of thing.

Najesa was led into the palace, a big blocky thing of stone, painted in bright patterns of switchbacking colour. Though, not actually that big by these people's standards, she knew — the royal palace in the city just across the bay was much larger. It just sort of seemed like a lot to her. There was one temple in her homeland that she guessed was sort of comparable to this in construction, but still rather smaller in size. And many of the houses and such in the city were stone as well, which was very strange to her. She ignored it though, followed the women along the halls, vibrant, gauzy curtains fluttering in the breeze carried through from the shore, nose tingling from the sharp perfume thick in the air.

Soon she was walking into a large, open room, only the wall the direction she was walking in from and the opposite solid, the other two open to the nearby sea, the ceiling incomplete, bars of sun and shadow skewed to the east cast on the glimmering granite tile of the floor. In the middle of the room was a low table, spread across it some odd, thin material she didn't recognise. Sitting at the opposite side was an apparently young woman, some kind of brush in one hand, doing something to one of the things on the table. 'I wasn't aware we had a guest coming,' the woman said, her voice low and somewhat distracted.

'Was I supposed to send word ahead? I'm not from around here, you know.'

The woman set aside her brush, looked up. She looked little different than any of the other people around here, same lightly browned skin and dark hair and eyes. Najesa noticed she was dressed rather oddly — she didn't think she'd seen any cloth that thin before, the sheer pink-purple robe wasn't exactly concealing much. The colourful beads plaited into her hair were more familiar, not that different from her own, Najesa figured a lot of cultures did things like that. And, of course, magic poured off of her in waves, setting her skin to tingling, this woman clearly more powerful than anyone Najesa had ever met. Not quite so powerful as Najesa herself, she didn't think, but far, far closer than any mortal had ever gotten in her long experience. The woman cocked her head slightly, the little things in her hair clacking a little, eyes slipping up and down Najesa from her toes to the top of her head. 'No, I don't suppose you are. Where _are_ you from? I don't recognise the...' The woman trailed off, her finger waving across her chest and hips.

'North.'

'Where north?'

'Far north.' Najesa shrugged. 'I doubt you would have heard the name of my homeland here. I wouldn't be surprised if I am the only one of my people to ever come this far south.'

The woman blinked at that, leaning back away from her table a little, propping herself up against her hands on the floor behind her. Which let Najesa notice that mostly-transparent gown was apparently the only thing she was wearing, and it hid practically nothing. Not that Najesa actually cared, of course — the urge most other people seemed to have to cover themselves always seemed weird to her — it was just curious. 'Why have you come so far? I assume it's not just to meet me.'

'It is, actually.' The woman gave her a look at that, raising an eyebrow, clearly waiting. 'Even so far away, we have heard of the Lady of the Sacred Palace. They say she is powerful in magic, has lived a dozen lifetimes, but yet appears impossibly youthful.'

Now the woman shrugged, her hair tinkling again. 'If you were simply trying to figure out if those legends are true, well, they are. I'm not entirely certain how long I've been around, but it's a while. Though, I don't know how I could prove it. I suppose,' she said, a smirk touching her lips, 'we could simply wait.'

Najesa didn't need her to prove it. She'd known it was true the moment she'd set eyes on her. She wasn't a normal mortal human, she could feel that. Though, she was slightly surprised the woman hadn't noticed the same about her. 'How long is a while? A rough guess.'

The woman thought for a second, her eyes tilting up to the slatted ceiling. 'I'm not certain, but...I would say twenty generations, perhaps? A few hundred years, at least.'

Oh. Well.

'You seem disappointed,' the woman said, giving her something between an amused smirk and a confused frown.

Najesa sighed. 'Not exactly. I was just hoping you were older. That you might have some better idea than I do what happened to me. But if you're only a few hundred years old, you're not nearly old enough.'

The woman blinked at that for long moments, staring at her. When the silence continued to stretch, Najesa decided to take a risk, reached forward to try to get a picture of what was going on in her head. A little confusion, she felt, a little bit of shocked disbelief, but mostly an impression of overwhelming...awe? Not too dissimilar from what she felt from some supplicants, finding themselves in the presence of something far older, far more powerful than themselves, a goddess among mortal men. The touch of her mind seemed to startle the woman out of it, shaking her head to herself. 'How long?' she finally said, her voice little more than a thin breath.

'I don't know,' Najesa said, shrugging again. 'I can't remember much of my life very well at all, only glimpses. But from how the world has changed around me, I would have to guess thousands of years. Exactly how many thousands, I don't know.'

Again, she was stared at for a moment, though much shorter this time. After only a few seconds, the woman was getting to her feet, looking over Najesa's shoulders to one of the armed women behind her. 'Dinner, I believe.' While the warriors tromped away, the woman walked around the table, her smooth, gliding pace setting her nearly-transparent, diaphanous robe to fluttering. 'What's your name?'

'Najesa.'

'Aŋtewužuq.' She blinked; that was a bit of a mouthful. 'But my friends call me Atewa, if you prefer.'

'That would probably be easier, yes.'

The corners of Atewa's lips curled with a smirk. 'Come on.' The woman led her off to the right, out again into the open air, salty brine mixing with the odd perfume that seemed to fill the palace. Najesa stepped onto a balcony of sorts, extending out over a low cliff, sea waves weakened by the semi-enclosed bay gently lapping against the base a short distance below. The sun nearing to setting behind them, the sky was sketched with yellows and oranges, purple touching the clouds far to the horizon, painting the brilliantly-coloured buildings of stone and wood across the bay in somber tones, the many sails anchored to docks or floating across the water seemingly aflame.

Najesa had to admit, while it was a bit warm here for her tastes it could be rather pretty sometimes.

She was snapped out of her stupor by the fluttering of magic in the air. She glanced to her side in time to see the cushioned seat on the ground multiply itself, the low little table in front of it extending a bit to the side. Atewa clenched her fist for a second, her face visibly twitching, tendrils of power wrapping solidly about her conjurations. Not making them permanent by any means, Najesa could tell — as far as she knew, outside of a few very specific exceptions, that was impossible — but certainly extending how long they would last. Then she waved Najesa to the conjured cushion, Atewa herself settling into the original.

'So,' Atewa said, after a short moment of silence staring over the bay. 'Have you ever met another immortal before?'

Hmm, she seemed far less doubtful than she had been a moment ago. Perhaps touching her mind as she had had gotten her to see how obviously powerful she was, it was possible Atewa hadn't been looking before. 'No. I thought I was the only one until stories about you reached my home.'

'Well, I'm not the only one, you know.'

'How many are there?'

Atewa sighed, rubbing at her cheek. 'A few. Not many. Nearby, I know there's a man in Waxinaqwes. I avoid him, he's unpleasant. There's the Queen Mother of the Xatenuq, in a land north and east of here, and a few others close to her. There's Xaninanak, who spends most of her time in a city far away called Unug. In a land across the sea to the south, I know of at least two, but the only one I've met is Ulchayit — I'm sure I said that wrong, she tells me I never get it right. Ulchayit is the only one I know well, we've been working on a project together for a while. I'm sure there are more, but those are the only ones I've met, so all I can say for sure.'

Najesa nodded to herself for a moment. She'd heard about the the Queen Mother on her way here, but she hadn't let the rumours distract her. The rest were new to her. 'And how old are they, about?'

'If you're right about your guess about your age, they're all younger than you. The immortals I've talked to, we have trouble keeping track of how many _hundreds_ of years old we are, not _thousands_.' Atewa shrugged a little, then shot Najesa a quick smirk. 'You might just be the oldest person in the world, you know.' She'd sort of assumed that before learning there were others... 'Well, there's one, but I'm pretty sure she's not human.'

'Not human?'

'I have no idea what she is. She calls herself...well, it means "she whose breath gives life to rain and lightning," but that's a pain to say every time, so I just call her Teacher. She's been around forever, but if you ever meet her you'll know right away there's just something wrong about her. She's something else, not one of us.'

'Ah.' And Najesa's questions were exhausted for the moment. Not that she was thinking particularly straight at the moment. For one thing, she'd been travelling for a while, and as she'd gotten closer to where she knew Atewa lived she'd been excited enough she'd started having trouble sleeping. That storm that had hit had _not_ helped — Najesa was not at all used to travelling over water, and trying to keep her tiny little boat from sinking all by herself had been an interesting experience. So she was a bit tired.

And this conversation had already been both more and less than she'd hoped. She'd hoped the Lady of the Sacred Palace she'd heard about would be older than her, more knowledgeable than her. That she would know what had happened to her, why she was the way she was, if it could be replicated. She didn't know how many more of her children, grandchildren, she could watch age and die before going mad. Well, permanently mad, anyway — she had lost herself quite a few times, which with how she was in those moods really made her pity the people around her, but she always snapped out of it. A few of her children had turned out to be just as unaging as herself, reaching adulthood and never passing, but far too few.

But no, at the very least she was the oldest Atewa knew of, and she knew of several. She'd always thought she was the only one, and the thought there were multiple others... Not sure what to think about that yet. She guessed it was possible they knew more about how this happened, she could ask, but she could wait a moment, gather herself a bit.

'How do you know?'

Najesa started, opened her eyes. And was then somewhat surprised again to see a couple girls placing a few plates and bowls on the table in front of them. Must have lost track of time in her thoughts there. She frowned at the girls, wondering to herself that she hadn't seen any men or boys here yet, if that were relevant. Then she shook her head, dismissing the thought, and turned to Atewa. 'How do I know what?'

'Your estimate as to how old you are. I would think it would be incredibly difficult to keep track of that sort of time. Even my guess of somewhere between four and five hundred years for myself is just that: a guess.'

'Well.' She looked over the food for a moment, by now unsurprised to see the heavily-spiced beans and fish that seemed to be common around here. 'This is a good example, actually,' she said, picking up the little curved tool she knew was practically necessary to eat this kind of thing without making an enormous mess. 'Most of my life, we didn't have things like these. You ate with your hands, or depending on what it was...' Oh, might as well. Najesa closed her eyes, focused for a moment, before conjuring a knife into her open hand with an easy flex of magic. Handing it over to Atewa, she said, 'One of those was used for meat from larger animals, certain roots and fruits. And not everyone had one.'

Atewa was silent for a moment, slowly chewing a mouthful of this stuff that honestly almost brought tears to Najesa's eyes just smelling it — it wasn't _bad_ , exactly, the spices they used were just far more intense than she was used to. Najesa had conjured a copy of her first knife she could remember, to the best of her memory. The blade was bone, she thought from an elk, the cutting edge far more dull and uneven than anyone would use today. The grip was wrapped with plaited bundles of dried grasses, making a better surface to hold on to, a few little smooth stones just under the blade to catch a person's hand from sliding up. There was a simple carving on both sides of the blade, a bird circled by three arrows, eight little stars running from one end to the other. She had absolutely no idea what that was supposed to mean anymore, but she knew it was old, from the very earliest period of her life.

'I've never seen anything like this,' Atewa said once she'd swallowed.

'There are some people far to the north of even my homeland who still make things like that. My people don't anymore, I'm the only person who remembers them.'

'Mm. What is this made of?' she asked, tapping the flat of the off-white blade with one finger.

'Bone.'

Atewa turned to give her a look somewhere between disbelieving and disgusted.

She just smiled at her, chuckling despite herself. 'I'm serious. From an elk, I think. Maybe a bear, I know we used those too, but I suspect my mother made the original, so probably elk.'

'Your mother made this?' Atewa said, blinking down at the ancient knife.

'I think so?' She shrugged. 'I vaguely remember losing it, a long, long time ago, and being sad that I lost it, because it was all I still had of the person who made it. I _think_ it was my mother, but a child or grandchild or lover or something is possible too.'

'Your family were craftsmen, then?'

Najesa blinked. 'What?' For a moment, Atewa just glanced between her and the knife, giving her a look like that should be obvious. 'Oh, no. There was no such thing back then. If you wanted something, generally you had to make it yourself. Sometimes if someone else in the tribe had something, and you needed it, they'd let you borrow it. If you're really lucky, someone would die, and they would have things that were well-made enough they were still usable, and nobody else would want them. If that original knife had been made by my mother, that's how I would have gotten it. But, mostly, you had to make everything on your own.

'I still remember how to make those properly,' Najesa said, nodding at the knife. 'It's not difficult. Time-consuming, but not complicated.'

For a short while, they both ate in silence, Atewa turning over the reproduction of the ancient knife in her hand. 'How long will this last? I can ask Ulchayit if she's ever seen anything like this.'

'Can't you tell?' Honestly, Najesa had very little idea of just how good she was with magic. Most everything she knew she'd invented herself — she'd picked up a few tricks from other people here and there, but mostly. Atewa was far younger than her, true, but she also seemed to be in contact with far more people, so it was possible she'd been exposed to more things devised by other people than Najesa had. Najesa could guess pretty easily how long a conjuration would last, just from having felt out thousands of them before, but she had no clue if that was a common skill or not.

'Normally I can,' Atewa said with a slight shrug, 'but you don't seem to conjure the same way we do. It feels different enough I'm not sure.'

Oh, well, that could explain it, then. 'Only a few hours, but I can extend it quick.' Without waiting for Atewa to say anything, Najesa reached deep within herself, pulling up a sizeable handful of magic, enforcing upon it a feeling of resistance, of permanence, then reached across Atewa to the knife, touched it with a single finger. The other woman flinched at the crackle of magic passing through the air — it was rather a lot, she guessed, by normal people terms, but Najesa was long used to throwing this kind of power around — but Najesa ignored her reaction, focusing on the magic settling into her conjuration. Good, it was holding. 'There, it should last for a few years now.'

'A few _years?'_

'Er. Yes?' Was that unusual? As long as she remembered to renew them every few years, she'd figured out how to extend transfigurations and conjurations indefinitely quite some time ago...

'Okay, then.' Atewa sounded slightly shaken, her voice a little unsteady. She set the knife aside, and ate for a few moments in silence again before regaining the ability to speak. 'You'll have to teach me how to do that.'

'I suppose I could.' She did have quite a bit of experience teaching people the tricks she'd made up over the ages, and it was very possible Atewa would have things to teach her in return. It hadn't been her intention coming here, but why not. 'I hadn't really planned on staying long, but I wouldn't be opposed.'

'Yeah, why _did_ you come find me, anyway?'

Najesa sighed, dropped her spoon and shoved the emptied plate away. She noticed at a glance Atewa wasn't even near finished, but she was eating oddly slow and delicate, and Najesa had been hungry. She grabbed at the mug in front of her, and was surprised enough by the taste of the foreign drink inside she was temporarily distracted. It was sort of fruity, she guessed, though she wasn't sure exactly what kind of fruit, but it tasted a bit...off. Not bad, exactly, just different. She was vaguely reminded of something some of the farming communities around where she lived were making these days, but far sweeter. After a second of confusion, she guessed it was probably wine — she'd heard of it before, and knew people around here had been making it for hundreds if not thousands of years, she'd just never had any before.

But anyway, Atewa had asked her a question. 'I was hoping you might know why we are the way we are. Even better, might know some way to reproduce it. I'm tired of watching my children grow old and die. Losing lovers is little better, I try to avoid keeping any for any period of time.'

Atewa was silent for a moment. At a glance Najesa saw a sadly thoughtful sort of look on her face. Short of pitying, but not by far. 'How many children have you lost by now?'

'I honestly don't know. By what I remember of how my people used to live, I would have had my first child by the time I was...I don't know, fourteen, fifteen, something like that. From when I was still young, I only remember the barest flashes, nothing really coherent. I don't remember my first born's face, or their name, or even if they were man or woman. And while perhaps not as many as ordinary people, I still have children somewhat regularly. There are three living right now.' All adults — after deciding she was going to, she'd waited to make her trip until her youngest son was of age and sufficiently independent — and not including the ones that had turned out as undying as herself, there were a number of those around, some she hadn't heard from in ages. It was very possible, come to think of it, that one or even multiple of the immortals Atewa had mentioned were actually hers. Then she let out a low snort, darkly amused despite herself. 'I suspect I've simply forgotten more of my children than anyone else has ever had.'

'Oh.' Atewa was silent for a long moment, staring out at the calm sea and swiftly darkening sky. Probably processing that, so Najesa let her, just waited. 'Well,' she finally said, shifting in her seat a little, 'I'm afraid I don't know any better than you. As far as I know, no one else does either. So, I can't help with the first problem, the losing children. I do know a bit of a trick for the second, though.'

'Really?' Najesa would think anything that would work to extend the life of one person would be good for any— The thought broke off with another snort of laughter as she saw the look in Atewa's eyes. She really didn't need to peek in her mind to know what she was suggesting. Almost impressive how she could go from slightly depressed to lustful that quickly. 'Well, no one's just come out and propositioned me like that in some time.'

Her voice thick with a combination of amusement and self-satisfaction, Atewa said, 'I hadn't even gotten to suggesting anything yet, you're too fast for me. But, why, is that a problem? Should I not?'

'No, it's fine. It's more about the attitudes of people around me changing than my own preferences. People are starting to be strange about this sort of thing these days.' Though, she guessed it might be more accurate to say she's the strange one now — the looks people give her whenever she tried to get them to explain to her why marriage existed, she still didn't entirely understand the concept. She cut Atewa a glance, shooting her what she hoped was taken as a teasing smirk. These things could get lost between cultures sometimes, she wasn't sure. 'Besides, this way I don't have to find somewhere else to stay while teaching you that conjuring trick.'

'Well,' Atewa said, her smile bright and almost childishly gleeful, 'glad I could make things convenient for you.'

* * *

 _Pannonia, Autumn, 374 CE_

* * *

Before getting started, Ažeðī took a moment to look over her target's dreaming mind.

She was not impressed. He would be almost too easy to break.

With a flex of will, unyielding focus, Ažeðī brought order into chaos. She stretched herself over the random somnolent wanderings of the man's mind, forced an image into his head. A level plain, carpeted in knee-high grasses, the sky thick with red and purple clouds, brilliantly flashing with lightning, the whole thing set to a steady actinic glow, the sky curling in to meet the ground far earlier than it should, all the world bound in a little dome. And she forced the man awake, to take form in the middle of the dome, naked and alone.

It was so pathetically easy to shape this man's mind, she was unoccupied enough she _almost_ forgot to speak in Latin. 'You have angered me, Magister Aequitius. That wasn't wise.'

The man jumped at the voice, turning frenetically in place, searching the featureless clouds for her, shouting out demands she show herself. There wasn't even anything to find, she hadn't given herself form yet. Honestly, hadn't he put together yet this wasn't real? Mortals sometimes. It was so pathetic, if she had lips right now she'd be sneering.

She should probably do that, though. No point in drawing out the parts that weren't fun. It was another simple exercise of will to give herself form — instead of more familiar dress, she decided to put herself in an elegant Roman-style robe, just for the impression it would leave him. She still appeared with bow in hand, though, she was supposed to be being intimidating here. Speaking of which, she'd originally intended to put herself on a horse, but at the last instant switched it out for a thestral instead. That should get the message across quite clearly.

She had actually ridden a thestral into battle a number of times. The horrified looks people gave her, priceless.

The thestral's ethereal hooves came to soft landings just a short distance behind the Roman, prompting him to spin on his heel, reaching to his waist for a sword that wasn't there. Then, when he caught up enough to process what he was looking at, he paled with unhealthy speed, staring at her impossibly emaciated mount with an amusing wide-eyed look of terror.

It wasn't really necessary, since the thestral wasn't actually here, and Aequitius probably wasn't paying attention, but Ažeðī guided the thestral through a tightening spiral with the proper twitches of her ankles and fingers of her open hand, approaching the petrified man with graceful slowness. The whole time she stared down at him, meeting his quivering eyes, her own, she knew, glowing a vivid blood red. 'I am not a forgiving woman, you see,' she hissed, her voice hanging in the air longer than it should, thick and heavy. 'Angering me was not the smartest thing you could have done.'

'What is this? Where are we?' The sorry excuse for a man's voice was shaking so heavily she could barely understand him. And he was supposed to be a leader of men. Pathetic.

'Do you know who I am, Aequitius?' With a flick of the fingers of her open hand, a harsh stinging charm came crashing across the man's chest, hard enough he was knocked to the ground on his side. Or, the illusion of a stinging charm, anyway, but the distinction wasn't really relevant. She continued to guide the thestral around, making sure one of the hooves landed just inches away from the man's head. 'If you can answer that, you should be able to figure it out.'

'I don't know!' he yelled, cringing away from her. 'I can't think of anyone who—'

Aequitius jumped, startled into silence as lightning struck the grass a short distance away, flames quickly sprouting from the assault. They grew tall, rising far into the air, higher than should be possible, orange and red tinged with black at the edges, the flickering outline occasionally taking the guise of birds in flight. As the flames neared, creating a tight circle around them, Ažeðī filled the air with the noise and the heat of it, leaving Aequitius quite nearly shaking with terror. Fire hadn't been her thing before, but the culture she was currently with came just short of worshipping it, so she'd adapted. It certainly could be impressive, she'd give them that. 'My people,' she said, voice still low and calm, 'call me Pəčāya Dūnoγą. You've heard of me, I'm sure.'

For a few moments, he just stared up at her, eyes wide, mouth working silently. 'But... But you're—!'

'What?' Ažeðī crossed her arms over her lap, leaning down a bit to glare down at him. 'A myth? You Romans, so sure you know everything.'

While Aequitius sputtered, Ažeðī twisted and leapt from the back of the illusory thestral — which required a bit of an unusual angle to get around the wing, but she had done this before. The man made to stand, but before he could, she brought her foot into his knee, taking him down again, then twisted her knee into his back, then lifted her foot again to bring it into the middle of his bowed spine, forcing him face-first to the ground. She slid her foot up to the base of his neck, pushing the side of his face into the dirt. He struggled a little, but she tightened the air about him, leaving him trapped, helpless before her.

Forcing her voice into a hiss, slithering forcibly into his ears so she'd be audible over the roar of the surrounding fire, she whispered, 'Now that you know who I am, Aequitius, perhaps you know what you've done to anger me.'

He was silent another moment, still fruitlessly struggling, before finally relenting. 'The priestess. This is about the priestess.'

'Priestess? Well, yes, I guess that is what your people would call her isn't it.' It wasn't difficult to do. Ažeðī reached into the man's memories, found the particular event she wanted, recreated it as a ghostly illusion in the direction Aequitius was facing.

The Romans were building forts outside of their own lands, and the local tribes were understandably annoyed. A summit had been called for some of the regional Roman leaders, Aequitius included, to meet with some of the local chieftains — while Ažeðī's people were not directly involved, they were allies, so she'd sent Tuxwēnå and a handful of warriors to represent their support and interests. The memory she'd pulled was during some banquet, Ažeðī both didn't know and didn't particularly care about the exact context. As they watched, an argument started up, and one of the Romans suddenly drew his sword, and cut down one of the chieftains. While his fellow tribesman exploded with rage, Tuxwēnå darted toward them, her hands already aglow with magic. Ažeðī recognised this, she knew Tuxwēnå was moving to save the critically injured man's life. But the Romans took her as a threat, and one man, this same Aequitius, raised a wand and struck her with a curse, a flash of dark fire taking her across the chest and head.

Ažeðī let the memory fade. She lifted her foot only long enough to flip Aequitius onto his back, her foot again coming down on his throat. The man let out a strangled cry, his hands grasping at her ankle, trying to push her away. Such a weak-minded fool. Her foot wasn't even _really_ there, pushing her away physically was impossible. He hadn't even tried to resist her mentally yet. What a pathetic excuse for a mage, hard to believe he'd gotten the better of Tuxwēnå like that. 'I'm sure you know the tribes your friend offended are already on the move. My warriors shall be with them. But that is war, no, this, _this_ ,' she snarled, pushing farther against the man's throat as he gagged, frantically slapped at her leg, 'this is personal.

'She survived, you know. You should be glad, it's the only reason you're still alive. But your curse, oh, it was a tricky one. She will carry those scars for the rest of her life. And I am not pleased. You see, she is not my _priestess_.' She leaned further down over the man, bending against her knee, staring unyieldingly into his eyes. The pressure on his neck was heavy enough now he'd probably be in serious danger of passing out if this were real. 'That woman you cursed is not a _servant_ of mine. She is my _daughter_. And, you see, she is as eternal as I. She will carry those scars on her face long after you have died, your children have died, and their children. Long after you have passed and gone, your name and your acts faded into the depths of history, she will still be marred. And, as you might guess,' she said, her free hand coming up to her face, fingers tracing along the line across her cheek, 'I have an _opinion_ about scarring.'

For a second, she was distracted by the memory of how she'd gotten this. It'd been a few centuries ago, long enough ago she'd forgotten some of the framing details. Her people had been expanding, and the head of one of the patriarchal clans had taken exception to that. He'd managed to catch her, a rather clever magical trap in the middle of a battlefield, and in their duel by some lucky break marked her, his cursed blade slicing along her face.

Needless to say, she'd taken exception to that. He should feel lucky he hadn't lived long enough to witness her slaughter his entire clan. She hadn't been gentle about it.

The man was trying to choke something past her foot. It was completely inaudible, but she didn't have to hear it to know what he was thinking — they were inside his mind right now, after all. 'You think I'll forgive you because you _didn't know?_ No, whether you knew who she was or not, whether you even knew I existed or not, makes no difference to me. You harmed my child, and that requires repayment, no matter the circumstances.

'Get up.' After a last little push against his throat, she stepped away, walking to the nearby thestral. Dropping her bow, she drew a replica of her sword from the scabbard hanging at the thestral's side. With a quick flex of thought, Aequitius was armed and armoured, the familiar brown and red of a Roman warrior, a curved shield affixed to one arm and long, straight blade in the opposite hand. 'You were trained to fight with scutum and spatha before you showed talent for magic, yes?' She turned to face him again, her lips twisting into a smirk at the look of confusion on his face as he examined his new accoutrements. 'You think your nation is so great, so powerful, you believe we should all bow to you. So, o mighty son of Rome—' With a tight flourish, she brought her blade down to point at the ground to her side, her posture straight and relaxed. '—make me bow. And I might just let you live.'

She almost laughed at the sudden determination rising in his thoughts, perhaps would have if she'd had any less control over this image of herself. Silly man actually thought he had a chance. That was really quite funny. He'd let his skills atrophy somewhat since being recognised as a mage, promoted above a station he'd needed to rely on them, while she'd mastered the blade millennia before the first stone of his precious city has been laid, and had nurtured that mastery the whole while. If only because incinerating everyone straight away got boring quickly. Even if this were real, even if this weren't an illusion she was in perfect control of, there was only one possible way a duel between them could end.

With a confident swagger obvious enough it was really quite amusing, Aequitius slunk closer, shield raised and knees deeply bent. She just smirked back at him. When he was near enough, he darted forward, the point of his sword coming in for her stomach. She stepped a bit forward and to the right, the stab passing to her left with room to spare, putting his shield between the two of him. Before he could move too far, she brought her free hand up, landed a solid punch on the metal of the shield. A high clang rang with the blow, the force sending Aequitius stumbling backward.

He got his balance back after a few steps, straightened to give her a somewhat wary look. Still smirking at him, she flipped her blade around in her hand, the flat resting against her forearm. 'Come now, Aequitius. I'd almost think you aren't taking this seriously.'

His face sinking into a glare, he darted in again, with another stab she simply stepped around again, this time to the left, but he reacted far more quickly this time, twisting around into a slash toward her side. She blocked it easily, tilting her shoulder to catch the blow with her sword against her arm. A single step forward brought her in near enough to jab her foot into the back of his knee, another tilt of her arm bringing her blade swiping along the middle of his back. She let him tumble away, whirling around to face her again, his mind around them tightening with pain.

'Really, Magister.' She shook her head, twirling the hilt around in her hand to bring the point down to the ground again. 'This is quite pathetic. I doubt I even need this thing, I could kill you with my bare hands.'

He came at her again, having learned his lesson enough to stay somewhat back, slashing at her again and again. Some she slapped away with little twitches of her blade, but most of them she just leaned or twisted away from. Honestly, so slow and clumsy, she wasn't sure how this man had managed to rise as far as he had. After a few moments, he overextended with an overhead slash, so she ducked to the right again, grabbed the top of his shield with her open hand. With only a push and a yank, he'd lost balance entirely, and a quick spin on her heel sent him tumbling away from her.

Not for the first time, she found herself feeling a bit underwhelmed by a Roman soldier. She was still somewhat amazed they'd managed to expand their reach so far. They weren't the worst she'd ever seen, of course, and the characteristic Roman organisation and discipline were rather impressive, but the individuals she'd fought personally weren't even close to the greatest warriors she'd faced. The regular conscription they'd started up recently didn't help matters. If they hadn't so effectively managed to pit local tribes against each other as they had over and over and over, she guessed, they probably wouldn't have done half as well as they had.

'Well, I'm getting bored.'

Apparently, Aequitius took offense at that. He charged toward her again, but it was a simple matter to bat his sword aside, grab again for his shield, twist around it to his back. A quick jab at the back of his leg had him falling to one knee, and before he could turn away she had her arm around his neck, and her blade driven into his lower back to the hilt.

His mind convulsing with imagined pain, Aequitius fell to his knees, his sword falling from limp fingers, staring numbly at the reddened metal sprouting from his stomach. She followed him down, cheek pressed to the side of his head, and with a thought drew the illusory fires closer to them, inches away, the air hot and dry. 'Don't worry too much, Aequitius.' She twisted her wrist a bit, the man gasping and shuddering in agony against her. 'You're not going to die. Not tonight. Not yet. This is all in your head, you see. It may _feel_ real—' Another jerk of the blade inside him set him to shaking and crying, bringing a smile again twitching at her lips. '—but you will awaken when I leave whole and unmarked.

'But I won't be entirely gone. I'm going to leave you a gift when I go. Whenever you sleep, there will be no rest for you. There will be tortures uncounted waiting for you in your dreams. All of it vivid, all of it excruciating. Before my people and our allies catch up to you and your friends, you will have died dozens of agonising deaths. And there is no escape. There is no way to remove my influence from your mind. No matter how far you flee, you cannot escape my wrath. Even if you evade the warriors pursuing you, the nightmares will follow. Every night, so long as you live. How many nights can be tortured to death in your sleep, I wonder, before you lose your mind entirely?'

She wasn't being completely truthful, of course: it _was_ possible to remove the deep compulsion she was carefully weaving into his mind even as she spoke to him. However, she could count on her fingers the number of people who knew magic and the human mind well enough to pull it off. Most were outside his reach, and the only one who was would recognise her work and refuse to undo it. Or, more likely, add to it.

Actually, she almost hoped he would live long enough to seek her aid. She could imagine how her friend and intermittent lover of millennia would react to the request, and it was hilarious.

'It is time I leave, Aequitius,' she whispered into his imaginary ear, her voice as thick with sadistic humour as she could make it. 'Pleasant dreams.'

With a tightly-composed flare of magic, the illusion was shattered, her grip on his mind was released, and she was gone.

* * *

 _Scotland, June 21st, 1995 CE_

* * *

Síomha idly wondered when exactly her life had gone completely insane. She'd like to think it was when the _Queen of bloody Nightmares_ decided to appear on her couch, but, honestly, it'd probably started before that.

Not that the immortal, walking and talking bad luck charm who was apparently her mother was helping matters.

' _Relax_ , child.' Her eyes flicked to the side for only an instant to the impossibly ancient woman at her side. 'No one is going to notice anything if you don't call unnecessary attention to yourself.'

'In case you _hadn't_ noticed, we do look rather similar.' That first day they'd met, when Síomha had finally slowed down enough to take a moment to look, she'd noticed she and Badhbhín, as she insisted on being called, actually looked very alike. Unnaturally alike — Badhbhín was slightly shorter than her, and she did have that scar across her face, but other than that they were practically identical. Which didn't surprise her, really. If, as Badhbhín claimed, Síomha didn't even have a father or anything, she should be a clone of her mother. Genetically. If Badhbhín was telling the truth. She still wasn't sure whether to believe that or not. 'It's not impossible someone could notice.'

'People tend to be distracted by our scars. They won't pay attention to our features enough to notice.'

Síomha winced at that. Not because of the mention of Badhbhín's scar, which was rather ghastly, but by the use of the plural. Walking a few steps behind them on the way up to the arena was another virtually identical woman, who Síomha guessed was sort of her two millennia old half-sister. Well, not half-sister, technically, since they should both be genetically identical to Badhbhín, which meant they were genetically identical to each other, which meant— Oh, forget it. Anyway, Síomha had absolutely no idea what to think of her either. She was a bit more...volatile than Badhbhín. Which sounded kind of funny, actually, saying someone was more volatile than the bloody Morríoghan, but fine. Very prickly, very sarcastic. Pretty much every conversation ended with her walking off in a huff. Not that Síomha would actually describe it that way to her, she'd probably get cursed for that.

Apparently, this one had grown up a bloody Sarmatian of all things, which she guessed sort of made sense.

Síomha was still slightly annoyed by her being here. A few days after Badhbhín had randomly appeared, she'd just vanished for a couple hours, before appearing with another stranger so magically powerful the air quivered around her, briefly explained they were sisters, then ordered them to play nice. And Síomha was suddenly hosting _two_ immortal guests, without her opinion being asked for. Méabh, as the younger immortal had chosen to call herself while in Britain, hadn't seemed any happier about it than she had.

Badhbhín had seemed subtly amused by the choice of name. She hadn't said anything, but Síomha assumed the myths of the Morríoghan's involvement in a war against a Dark Lady by the same name weren't quite as fictional as most people thought.

But anyway, Badhbhín said "our scars" because Méabh was even more thoroughly damaged than she. Burn scars, obviously left by some sort of dark curse, spread all across at least half her face, the thick tissue turning all of her expressions lopsided, preventing her right eye from opening quite all the way, her hair line on that side rather further back than it should be. Since neither Méabh nor Badhbhín seemed to have any concept of modesty, she'd had ample opportunity to notice it wasn't just on her face — it touched her neck somewhat less, the red and white lines barely noticeable, but one shoulder and much of her upper chest had been hit rather badly, bad enough one breast had been entirely burned away.

When she'd asked Badhbhín about it — it hadn't seemed tactful to ask the woman herself — she'd only said, her voice chillingly calm and level, that the man responsible had begged for death before it'd finally taken him.

And here she'd thought her clan could be scary sometimes. Damn.

But anyway, she wasn't at all comfortable with this. Apparently, because there was a distant possibility the Fae might try to assassinate her, Síomha wasn't allowed to go anywhere on her own. Apparently, with the security around the judges' box for the Third Task, Badhbhín wouldn't be able to hide herself the way she usually did when she was following her literally everywhere. (Síomha did her best not to think about that.) So, apparently, Badhbhín just had to come out in the open, posing as a friend of the family. And apparently, Méabh had to come along, because...

Actually, Síomha hadn't been given a good reason for that one. Not that she was going to try to tell her no. Would rather not get cursed by her unstable ancient dark sorceress of a sort-of-sister, thanks.

Walking up to the quidditch pitch on the Hogwarts grounds, she saw they were getting a few looks. But, by the expressions on people's faces, how some of them shrunk away, they were probably noticing Méabh and Badhbhín's scars more than anything. Méabh's were rather... Well, they weren't something you could miss. The way she glared at anyone who looked at her really didn't help. Nor what they were wearing, shite. Síomha had noticed the both had a preference for muggle-style clothes, and at least Badhbhín's jeans and black tee shirt weren't too unusual. But Méabh was wearing the most ridiculous-looking combination of perhaps the tiniest shorts Síomha had ever seen, a sleeveless little thing that didn't quite reach her waist and left the scarring along her shoulder and upper chest visible, as well as being tight enough to make it very clear she was rather lopsided, only partially covered by an open coat of black leather reaching practically to her ankles. She just... Yeah, people noticed her.

She couldn't fathom how Méabh thought that was an appropriate way to dress out in public. She looked so absurd.

And they did get plenty of weird looks, but nobody directly approached them. Of course, people usually didn't approach Síomha in public, she'd admit she'd started to develop something of a reputation, but she was pretty sure it wasn't her fault this time. Before long they were climbing the stairs up the stands, heavily-modified for the occasion. She felt eyes on her almost right away, knew it was Tournament security. But they weren't stopped, at least not until they reached the usual checkpoint just outside the judges' box. A quick peek inside showed they were quite nearly the last to arrive — not that Síomha really cared.

Síomha had to admit, she was slightly impressed with the foreign Auror who met them. His face didn't even twitch at seeing Méabh, he seemingly didn't react at all. Síomha suffered the now-familiar process of being scanned quick with some enchanted thing — she wasn't entirely sure what that even did, maybe check for polyjuice or glamours or such? — then temporarily sacrificed her wands to be checked. And then she was let through, reluctantly settling in to wait for the other two before moving into the box.

Badhbhín was let through easily enough. There was a moment where the enchanted thing seemingly wasn't working, judging by the confusion floating about the Auror, but then Badhbhín seemed to tense slightly, the air stilling, and the Auror finished soon after. Síomha was somewhat surprised when Badhbhín surrendered a wand for the Auror to check — she hadn't ever seen her use one. She was somewhat less surprised by the three nasty-looking knives she pulled from seemingly nowhere. But she was let through too, coming to stand next to Síomha as she again tucked away her hidden weapons.

But Méabh, of course she had to be a pain. She seemed to barely tolerate being scanned, her lips twitching with a repressed snarl, glaring at the Auror. And then, when she was asked to surrender any wands or other weapons... Just, fucking hell. First there was a wand — Síomha hadn't seen her use one yet either, but if Badhbhín carried one it stood to reason Méabh did too — but the first wand was quickly joined by four more. But then, reaching into seemingly empty space around her, Méabh drew out a ridiculous volume of muggle weaponry. Well, not technically muggle, since Síomha could feel from here it was all enchanted, but still. Three different swords in various styles in lengths, easily a dozen daggers and knives, a bloody spear and a couple javelins — fuck, where was she even keeping these things? — and then, rounding out the pile, two noticeably different bows and three separate quivers bursting with arrows, so thick with magic the air seemed to bend around them. When she was fully disarmed, Méabh crossed her arms under her chest and stared blankly at the dumbfounded Auror.

While everyone in sight of the checkpoint stared in disbelief, Síomha found herself feeling faintly relieved. It could be worse. At least Méabh wasn't carrying a horde of firearms on her. That would have been a bit awkward.

The Auror didn't speak for a while, glancing between the pile of weapons, Méabh, and Badhbhín as well, for some reason. Then, his hands slightly shaky, he tapped first one of the bows, then one of the swords, and said something in a language Síomha didn't recognise. Whatever he said, it sounded like a question, and by the way Méabh visibly tensed she didn't like that he was asking it. But Badhbhín answered before she could do anything, lowly and calmly in the same language, the slightest bite of authority about her tone. The Auror glanced back at her for a moment, frowning a little, but then nodded, and waved Méabh through.

While waiting for Méabh to load herself up again, Síomha slid a little closer to Badhbhín, whispered low enough she hoped no one else would hear. 'What the hell was that about?'

'He guessed correctly who we are. Calm yourself, child,' she hissed, cutting Síomha off before she'd hardly even reacted. 'He knows us by the people we were two thousand years ago, in a land far from here. It's possible he doesn't even know of your _Night Queen_ , I doubt he's connected us the way you fear, and even if he did, I told him to speak of us to no one, and he will obey. It is fine.'

'And he'll just do what you tell him?'

Badhbhín turned to give her a look, faintly exasperated. 'Of course. While his people don't worship me as their ancestors did, they do still revere me. He'll obey out of fear of reprisal, if nothing else.'

Oh. Well. All right, then.

Thankfully, nothing much else happened. Meeting with the other judges and their respective entourages went smooth enough. Méabh even had the decency to make herself scarce, disappearing for the food table whenever anyone came near, so it went far more smoothly than it could have. One of the Minister's aides, Síomha honestly couldn't even remember her name, but anyway, she and Badhbhín had seemed oddly... She couldn't put her finger on it, exactly. When they'd been introduced, they'd both had the slightest sense of amusement about them, of putting on an act, almost like they were sharing an inside joke of some kind. Like they knew each other. And there was something about her, Síomha couldn't tell what for sure, she just seemed...off, somehow.

She decided to ignore it, though. With how violently overprotective she'd gathered Badhbhín could be at times, she wouldn't be so calm about it if the woman were any kind of threat.

And despite her immortal company, the day went mostly as planned. Mostly. She sat by as the rules of the final task were announced, tried not to scowl too much as the caryd's name was called out for the partially jeering but mostly cheering crowd. Distracted glaring down at the thing, she jumped at a sudden sharp poke at her shoulder. She turned to see Méabh sitting next to her, a plate of food haphazardly balanced on one leg, the scars turning her disapproving frown into a crooked grimace. 'Stop that.'

She did her best to cleanse her voice of any annoyance, but she was sure she'd failed. 'Stop what?'

'This irrational dislike you have for nonhumans.' That was from Badhbhín, standing a short distance away, right at the lip of the box over the stands. 'It is only going to give you trouble later. Especially considering the carīdwð are our allies.'

'Your allies, you mean.'

Badhbhín turned, only enough to give Síomha a flat stare out of the corner of her eye. 'No. _Our_ allies. The carīdwð like humans. They see us as individuals with individual worth. The same cannot be said of all Fae. Unnecessarily offending any who walk with the wind would be unwise.'

Síomha frowned at that. For a few reasons, really. But she didn't particularly feel like arguing about it, _especially_ in public, so she didn't say anything.

She wasn't any more pleased when, within seconds after stepping into the maze, the caryd disappeared in a flash of fire, reappearing right next to the Cup on its plinth at the centre. The air was deafeningly thick with noise, both approving and not, and the caryd drew out the moment for a short while, grinning slyly up at the stands, dipping into a few graceful curtsies, then grabbing the Cup and ending the task before it'd barely begun. 'She shouldn't have been allowed to do that,' Síomha said, barely managing to keep her voice out of a low snarl. 'She should be disqualified.'

'It's a little late for that.' She was slightly surprised to hear the Minister's aide, whatever the woman's name was, was the one answering her. Fudge was already off with the other officials, but Síomha decided after only a moment the woman was right, there was no point in fighting it, so she didn't join the argument. The Champions had all already been portkeyed back to the entrance — including Rumenov, who hadn't even entered yet, which must have been annoying. It was over. 'Besides,' the woman said, a slight trace of humour on her voice, 'it's really your fault.'

'How is it _our_ fault?'

The woman turned a little to give her a narrow smile. 'You didn't put up a ward against displacement through fire. If you knew the first thing about carīdwð, you would know it's instinctive to them. Even their young children can do it. If you hadn't wanted her to win instantly, you should have stopped her.'

Well... That was a really good point, actually. She remembered when they'd arranged the wards for the thing and, honestly, it just hadn't occurred to her at the time. The Aquitanian representative had even looked uncharacteristically smug the entire conversation...

A distinct hint of amusement on her voice, Badhbhín said, 'There would be another reason not to dismiss nonhumans out of hand.'

Yes, great, she got it, fine. No need to rub it in.

The other judges were still arguing about the bloody thing — she didn't really see the point, the Tournament rules were quite clear — when the barest shivers of an approaching presence slid up her spine, Síomha straightening somewhat in her seat. She didn't have to look to recognise it, to know who was coming. She closed her eyes, taking a moment to centre herself. One would _think_ dealing with two immortals for the last weeks would have her well prepared to deal with this sort of thing, but apparently not...

And then she was unbalanced again when she opened her eyes to see Black had walked up to Badhbhín, ignoring her completely. 'I've been looking for you.'

Síomha wasn't sure if she wanted to curse or laugh. Did that woman have a death wish? Just walking up to the _bloody Queen of fucking Nightmares_ in public and casually saying, oh, there you are, fucking _insane_. And there wasn't just her to worry about, Síomha saw Méabh reaching into empty space around her, where Síomha now knew a deadly weapon of some kind was hidden. Standing as easy and confident as anything, it didn't seem to occur to Black that she was one wrong word away from being summarily cut down where she stood. Síomha somehow doubted either of the immortals would care about their audience.

But Badhbhín barely reacted. She didn't even seem surprised. Without even the slightest of twitches from her, Síomha felt a privacy charm of some kind snap into place around them, Badhbhín casually turning to face the foolhardy Auror. 'And so you've found me, Lily Evans.' Síomha was surprised Badhbhín didn't even try to deny it — the scar did make her somewhat identifiable for those in the know, sure, but it was still weird. 'Now, why have you been so insistent on meeting with me? I don't make myself available to just anyone these days, you know.'

Wait a second. The Fae supposedly assassinating certain people were supposedly trying to operate in secret, so they supposedly wouldn't try to kill her in a crowded place like this, so... Was the real reason Badhbhín had come here solely because she knew Black would find her? That...made an odd amount of sense, actually...

Apparently, Black hadn't been quite as confident she knew who Badhbhín was as she'd pretended — she froze for a moment, seemingly surprised, before turning to give Síomha a slight glare. 'You know, I actually believed you. Not bad. There aren't very many people who can successfully lie to me.'

She snorted, resisting the urge to cross her arms, forcibly keeping a petulant pout off her face. 'In my defence, I wasn't lying at the time.'

'Ah.' Black stared at her for another second, then shrugged and turned back to Badhbhín. 'They were Fae.'

'Yes. Paladins.'

'Court of the Sun?'

'Yes. I don't remember what you call their race in Britain, but they are part of the Court of the Sun, yes.'

Black was silent a short moment. 'Why? Why did the Court of the Sun send paladins to try to kill you?'

'Not just me, unfortunately.' Badhbhín gave a slight, careless shrug, turning to gaze out over the crowd. 'It's coming to an end, you see. The Fae have been playing a long game with our world, and we are about to enter the final phase. The most powerful of us are a potential threat, no matter how small a one, so now that we are no longer needed we are being eliminated.'

'What do they want?'

'They already have what they want. I'll be very clear with you, Lily Evans: there is nothing we can do to stop them. This world is theirs, not ours. It was blind arrogance to ever believe it was. All we can hope to do is survive long enough, make allies powerful enough, to hopefully convince them to treat us kindly.'

'No.' Black's voice was low and hard, fists clenched at her hips. More than that, Síomha could feel hot, furious magic pouring off of her, so thick the air was almost crackling with it. If she weren't already sitting she'd probably have gone weak in the knees by now, bloody sorcerers always did that to her. 'There has to be something we can do.'

Badhbhín turned back around, apparently just to raise an eyebrow at her. 'Think you can fight Elder Fae, now, do you? The best I could do was flee, and I daresay I can do far better than you. And they greatly outnumber us. No, there is nothing we can do to stop them directly. So, I would keep an eye on that girl of yours, if I were you.'

Black was shocked enough by whatever Badhbhín was obviously hinting at she took a step back, her hand twitching with the reflex to go for her wand. 'You– You know about that?'

'Of course I know about that,' Badhbhín said, shaking her head. 'An old friend of mine saw fit to inform me. I'm not sure how she found out, but the meddlesome demon does have an unsavoury habit of eavesdropping.' There was a pointed bite to Badhbhín's voice, enough Síomha had to wonder if that "old friend" of hers was listening in even now. 'Now, if you would, Lily Evans, our little talk is starting to draw attention, and I'm sure we both have better things to do.'

After only a second's hesitation, Black abruptly vanished, probably that shadow magic trick she was known for. And then Síomha was dragged off to deal with the award ceremony to end the Tournament.

No matter how much her heart really wasn't in it.

* * *

Icǰe — _Roughly " **eek** -jeh" (IPA: _/i:c.ʄɜ/ _)_

Ninze — _Roughly " **nihn** -tseh" (IPA: _/n̪ɪɲ.t̪͡sɜ/ _)_

Ayis — _Roughly "uh- **yees** " (IPA: _/ɐ.ji:s/ _)_

J̌echi — _Roughly " **jay** -chih" (IPA: _/ʄe:.t͡ɕɪ/ _)_

Educ — _Roughly "eh- **dook** " (IPA: _/ɜ.d̪u:c/ _)_

Noya — _Roughly " **noy** -yuh" (IPA: _/n̪oɪ̯.jɐ/ _)_

Kallístē (Greek: Καλλίστη) — _An old name for the island of Santorini, Greece, still used by the local mages interchangeably with the irl official name Thera (Greek:_ Θήρα _). A major_ _Belẽs (Minoan)_ _settlement, at the time of this scene it would be an early Bronze Age city, one of the few in all of Europe._

Najesa — _Roughly "nye-yay- **sah** " (IPA:_ /nai̯.je.sɑ:/ _)_

sword — _Just to clarify, given the technology available during the period what Najesa is referring to as "sword(s)" would be far shorter than what we typically think of, less than two feet in length._

Aŋtewužuq (IPA: /aŋ.ʈɛ.wʊ.ʒuq/, roughly "ang- **teh** -woo- **zhook** ") — _Generally known as the Lady of the Sacred Palace, one of the earliest magical scholars, and one of the most feared Dark Ladies in history from roughly 1600 ~ 800 BCE before mellowing out again. In the modern day, lives mostly in isolation in the Belẽs capital._

Waxinaqwes (IPA: /wɐ xi: na qʷɛs/, roughly "wuh- **khee** -nah-kways") — _This is meant to be an archaic Belẽs interpretation of an extremely early Greek name that would eventually become Achaea (Greek:_ _Αχαΐα). Though, at this time, the Greeks haven't come that far south yet, the "Waxinaqwes" Atewa refers to is a primitive Bronze Age civilisation on the mainland a bit north of modern Achaea._

Xatenuq (IPA: /xa:.tɛ.nuq/, roughly " **khah** -teh-nook") — _An archaic Belẽs name for the Hatti, a people living in what is now central Turkey._

Xaninanak (IPA: /xa ni na: nak/, roughly "khah-nee- **nah** -nahk") — _An archaic Belẽs interpretation of Sumerian Inanna, more commonly known by the Akkadian/Babylonian name Ishtar. Yes,_ _ **that**_ _Ishtar._

Unug (IPA: /ʊ.nuk/, roughly "oo- **nook** ") — _The ancient Sumerian city, more commonly known as Uruk, the Akkadian rendition of the name._

Ulchayit — _Atewa mispronouncing my own amateur attempt at guessing the original pronunciation of Egyptian_ _wȝḏ.yt. Yes,_ _ **that**_ _Wadjet._

[she whose breath gives life to rain and lightning] — _In case anyone is wondering, yes, Atewa is talking about Stormbreather._

Ažeðī — _Roughly "ah-zhey-thee" (IPA:_ /a.ʒe.ði:/ _)_

Aequitius — _The use of this name and the events described are inspired by a real historical confrontation between the Roman Empire and the Germanic and Sarmatian tribes of southeastern Europe. Some liberties were taken._

Pəčāya Dūnoγą (IPA: /pə tʃa: ya | du: nɔ ɣã/, roughly "puh-chah-ya doo-no-gha") — _Supposed to be Scythian, but I couldn't find sources for that I liked, so liberties were taken._

Tuxwēnå — _Roughly "too-xway-nah" (IPA:_ /tu.xʷe:.nɒ:/ _)_

[One of the Minister's aides] — _Yes, this is Stormbreather in disguise again._

* * *

 _Just to clarify, in case it's not obvious, Icǰe, Najesa, Ažeðī, and Badhbhín are all the same person, mostly known in Britain as the Night Queen of Ireland. Méabh is the same person as the Tuxwēnå mentioned in the previous scene_ _._ _Méabh is **not** the same person as the Queen of Connacht in the Ulster Cycle, but the name was chosen as an intentional reference to the headcanon Dark Lady behind the legendary figure, as part of an inside joke with __Badhbhín._

 _And there as a whole chapter that probably no one will find as interesting as I did. Ha ha..._

 _Until next time,  
~Wings_


	33. July, 1995

_Yes. I still exist. Hello. And no, that wordcount in your inbox was not lying. Have fun._

* * *

 _July 2nd, 1995_

* * *

'I'm still so incredibly jealous.'

Checking through her bag one last time, Charissa couldn't resist the smallest of amused smirks. That was far from the first time Hermione had said that. It'd been an almost constant refrain over the last week or so, ever since Charissa had been told she and her brothers would be staying with Mum in Kemet for a couple weeks. Hermione had travelled quite a lot herself over the years — she'd gotten the distinct impression her parents had a persistent wanderlust — but most of that had been before she'd even known magic existed. They didn't really have the contacts or knowledge to arrange anything even now, so they hadn't visited any foreign magical communities at all. Maybe something in France once, she wasn't sure.

Of course, Charissa hardly had either. A couple short visits to relatives in a village somewhere in the Netherlands, a few times France, that's really it. Going as far as Kemet was a new one on her.

'Is your family going anywhere?' She did remember Emma waxing on about one of the nations in America — Charissa couldn't remember which exactly, there were so many, one of the tropical ones.

Her face scrunching up with obvious annoyance, Hermione said, 'No, not this year. Because of Gwenn, mostly. Going to France for Christmas was pushing it a little already. Mum said something about Guatemala for next year, though.'

'Guatemala?'

'I honestly have no idea what mages call it. Somewhere in central America.'

'Ah.' She thought she had everything she'd need. Not that she had a whole lot to bring. Mum had specifically said the clothes she had that would really be wearable in Kemet were limited — the combination of the heat and the more intense sunlight made things complicated. Apparently, Mum would have things for her and her brothers there. So what she was bringing was mostly books by weight. Yes, yes, insert Ravenclaw joke here. She flicked out her wand quick, checked the time. 'Not long now. I should get down there.'

'Right.' An odd expression of reluctance on her face, Hermione slid off Charissa's bed, getting back to her feet within arm's reach. Odd, because Charissa wasn't entirely sure where the reluctance came from. Probably not the problem Charissa was having. She rather liked the sight of Hermione in her bed, something she'd gotten to see almost every day since the end of term. Hermione had even stayed overnight a couple times, last night included. A part of her would really rather she stay there.

Charissa did feel somewhat stupid in retrospect. Their dry spell was long over by now — between them, their occlumency was good enough they could keep Charissa out of Hermione's head even when they were _very_ distracted. But they hadn't fixed the falling asleep problem yet. At least, not until two nights after term. It'd been late, and Charissa had reluctantly pointed out Hermione should probably get home. Or at least to a different room, behind a paling or two, so Charissa wouldn't accidentally invade her mind while half-asleep. Hermione had given her an odd look, said there was another way to prevent that. Charissa had said she didn't know of anything. And a wide, playful smirk had crossed Hermione's face, her teeth flashing in the darkness, and she'd said, _I know you don't. So I guess I have to hope that, when you're all rested and thinking clearly, you'll forgive me._

Charissa had been so surprised at suddenly finding Hermione's wand pointed at her face she hadn't even thought to defend herself, charmed asleep before she could barely blink. In the morning, Hermione had said she'd been randomly remembering one day, that time back in first year when Hermione hadn't been sleeping properly, so Charissa had forced her to. Apparently, Hermione had exactly quoted what Charissa had said in the seconds before casting that sleeping charm. And it was a rather handy solution. Charissa suspected she might have ended up more in Hermione's dreams than she'd probably be comfortable with — she hardly ever remembered her own dreams on waking, it was hard to tell for sure — so she'd consciously failed to mention it. But it mostly worked.

And she had to admit, that whole thing...it made her curious. Not that she hadn't already been curious. It did frustrate her more than a little that she didn't know nearly as much of Hermione's mind as she did, well, a lot of people's by this point, to be honest. She _liked_ Hermione's mind, she always had, but now that she actually had the power to observe it directly, she _wasn't allowed_. It was annoying. But she was curious for other reasons, too. The way Hermione had spoken of that day had been... She didn't know, she guessed she was just wondering how exactly Hermione thought of her. How she conceptualised their relationship, how she felt about any little thing, how she might have reevaluated some things from before last summer in light of more recent events. The thought was fascinating. She was far too curious. She stared at Hermione for long seconds, fingers twitching, the steely control Severus had taught her to keep over that part of herself slipping ever so slightly...

She blinked, jerked away, shaking her head to herself. No. No, she'd promised she wouldn't. No matter how curious she was, no, she shouldn't.

'Charissa?' She glanced back up at Hermione to see her giving her an odd, narrow-eyed look, biting at her lip a little. It was always at least a little distracting when she did that. 'It happened again, didn't it.'

'What do you mean?'

'You almost read my mind.'

'Oh.' She paused for a moment, taking in the way Hermione was standing, the set of her face. She looked uncomfortable, yes, but she didn't look angry. Okay. 'Yeah, I did. I did stop myself, I just... I'm sorry, I'm just curious.'

Hermione didn't speak for a long moment, frowning at her, teeth still working at her lower lip. Yes, that was quite distracting. 'What's it like? Being able to see into other people's heads all the time.'

'I really have no idea how to answer that question. It's just...' She trailed off, shrugged. By this point, it was almost completely reflex. Glancing quick to check what someone was thinking or feeling — she wouldn't be surprised if her ability to read facial expressions would completely atrophy in little time at all — flipping through their memories to fill in blanks in what they were saying to her, or sometimes just out of curiosity. Severus had said she'd adapted to the ability impressively quickly, though that was apparently not uncommon when it triggered this late into adolescence. To be honest, learning to _stop_ herself from doing it had been the hardest part of the whole thing. She knew objectively she hadn't had it all that long, but it was already hard to remember what it had been like going about daily life without it. 'I've gotten used to it, I guess.'

'Why do you have such trouble keeping out of my head, anyway? You keep saying you're "curious", but that's not really good enough.'

Charissa kept a frown off her face with some effort. "Good enough"? What did Hermione mean it wasn't "good enough"? She shrugged the thought off, tried to think of how to answer. 'I don't know, really. I've always wondered about... But now I actually _can_ know it for myself, I mean, I don't have to guess reading between the lines, or trust that you're not, I don't know. I don't mean I think you're lying to me or anything.' She let out a frustrated sigh. She was still terrible with this kind of thing. She didn't know what she was saying. Well, standard gambit for when she thought she wasn't making sense talking to Hermione. 'I'm terrible at this, I don't know what I'm saying. It's just, if I could pick one person to know and understand completely, it would be you. But now, to be perfectly honest, I know a lot of people better than I know you. It's sort of a funny irony, when you think about it.'

For a long moment, Hermione just stared down at her, an odd look on her face. Charissa had no idea what that was. She seemed almost...wary? reluctant? Something, anyway. She stood there staring at her, working at her lip, for far longer than she usually let silences like this run, and Charissa was starting to worry she'd unknowingly said something wrong. She did do that sometimes. But then Hermione let out a long, shaky sigh, muttered, 'Do it.'

'What?'

'Go ahead. I give permission.'

Charissa could only blink at Hermione for a second. "Good enough", she'd said. A good enough reason, that's what she'd meant. What exactly in that awkward ramble had convinced her? Charissa had had no idea what she was saying, she didn't get it.

But she only hesitated for a second. She fully relaxed her hold over herself the next.

Charissa winced at the sudden assault on her senses, quickly narrowed her view how Severus had taught her. He had _not_ been kidding when he'd said Hermione had an unusually active mind. It was like stepping across a silencing barrier to find an _extremely_ noisy crowd on the other side, surrounded by too many sights and sounds to really make sense of too quickly, confusing and almost painful. Really not surprised she'd lost herself that first time. Before she'd even fully reoriented herself, she picked up an odd twitching sense she recognised as concern. It only took a second, following the thought through the chaotic maelstrom that was Hermione's tightly interlaced memory, for her to know at least _part_ of Hermione's reluctance to let Charissa in her head was out of concern she would hurt herself again.

Feeling the smile twitch at her lips, Charissa said, 'I'm fine, Hermione.' She pulled herself back somewhat, just for a moment, so she could focus a bit more on her surroundings. She slipped closer to Hermione, tipped herself up a little bit — it really bothered her how much shorter she was sometimes — so she could slip her chin over Hermione's shoulder, cheek sliding in against her neck, hand slipping into her hair. 'It's just noisy in here.'

It took a few moments for Hermione to collect herself. _Part_ of Hermione's aversion to the idea had been out of concern for Charissa, yes, but not even close to most of it. Hermione's thoughts were what she _was_ , they were _her_ , and having them in someone else's head seemed like she was less her than she'd been a second ago. She couldn't help the irrational fear she was going to be swallowed up in Charissa entirely, the thought terrified her, Charissa felt it clinging to her, threatening to spread, overwhelm. Hermione could feel the slight twitches of Charissa's presence in her mind, she could see that, and it was taking some effort to keep herself from trying to toss her out, from cringing at the sense of violation, that Charissa was somewhere she should not be. But, well, Hermione thought, a sense of ironic amusement shivering through her, it wasn't like Charissa hadn't ever been inside of her before — Charissa smirked against Hermione's shoulder at the cascade of very explicit memories primed in response to the thought — just calm down, Hermione, she could handle this.

Once she was sure Hermione wasn't going to toss her out, her arms slowly slinking around Charissa's lower back, she widened her channel into Hermione's mind somewhat. Closing her eyes again to focus on the foreign memories and feelings rushing through her. It was too much for her to take in, really. In a normal mind, a thought might be linked to a few memories, that memory to a few memories. It was best to think of it as a web, really, branching threads connecting thoughts and feelings and concepts and events, only a couple dozen nodes active at any one time. They blinked in and out quickly, the web different moment to moment, shifting at a speed too quick to really keep up with, but that was the basic idea.

Hermione's was far more complicated. For one thing, near as she could tell, Hermione wasn't limited to thinking a single thought at once. Even right now, she was trying not to be too uncomfortable with the fact that Charissa was in her head, wondering exactly what she was seeing and hoping there wouldn't be anything too embarrassing in there, considering what she should do when she got back home, it was very possible she'd be asked to watch Gwenn for a while, she was pretty sure her mother had some House Cherwell -related business, though it was possible she'd be bringing Hermione along for that, very consciously tracing the lines of Charissa's lower back through her shirt, very much aware of her form against hers and her fingers in her hair and her breath against her neck, a ramble about the mechanics of mind magic running along at one level, planning exactly what she was going to do over the weeks Charissa was gone...

And they weren't even distracted thoughts. Each was as full and vibrant as the single thread of consciousness that was all the average person could handle. To be perfectly honest, Charissa couldn't even keep up with it either — she could only really focus on one at a time, flicking back and forth, the others just whispering in the background.

And it wasn't just her thoughts, either. Hermione's memories seemed to be far more...thoroughly indexed, she guessed was a way to explain it. A single thought or memory in a normal person might only prime a handful of other memories at a time, but each node in Hermione's head branched out to _dozens_ of others all at once, hundreds and hundreds of concepts and events and schema and feelings swirling through her mind in a chaotic tempest. Charissa couldn't look at it all at once, turn around and there was more, and more, and more, there was too much.

It was overwhelming, to be honest. She couldn't imagine how Hermione could possibly live with this going on in her head all the time. No wonder she so often had difficulties with sleep.

Charissa saw the question coming before Hermione got it out — there was enough nervousness and doubt and hurt wrapped up in it it was easy to spot even in this chaos. She waited for her to actually say it out loud, though, no reason to make Hermione more uncomfortable than she already was. 'Am I really that different from other people?'

A clear impression of vulnerability was obvious in the question, more in her mind than on her voice. Which Charissa didn't understand. It was obvious Hermione thought being _too_ different from normal people was a bad thing, that the thought would hurt her at some level. That was unfathomable to her. To be completely honest, when Charissa had finally accepted she was just different, that she just didn't think or feel the same way everyone else did, it'd been a relief. A not insignificant one. It was just...easier this way. She didn't have to worry if there was something wrong with her, why she didn't care about a lot of the things other people seemed to, why they didn't entirely make sense much of the time. Because there _was_ something wrong with her, she was _incapable_ of caring about much of the things others obsessed over, she would _never_ feel the way normal people did about a lot of things. There was no reason to worry about it, that was just the way it was. It was easier.

But, she guessed, it was possible Charissa didn't care so much she wasn't a normal person _because_ she wasn't a normal person. She'd once thought Hermione was as off as she was, but by now she'd come to the understanding she wasn't. Charissa was whatever the proper term was for what she was. Hermione was just a bit eccentric, intellectually mature beyond her years, a consequence of whatever she'd done to her mind, probably. She'd been pretty sure before, with some of the things Hermione got hung up on she sometimes didn't even notice pass by, but now she was positive. There might be _a lot_ going on in here, but it wasn't that different from an ordinary mind. Less obsession over stupid things, fewer silly preoccupations, but the feelings attached to her memories, her sorrows and joys and embarrassments and pleasures and loves and annoyances and hatreds... All of that was perfectly normal.

Charissa's brain wasn't wired correctly; Hermione's brain was, just in more layers than anyone else's.

So she chose her words very carefully, narrowing her window into Hermione's thoughts and memories so she had the concentration for it. 'Not _different_ , exactly. Just... _more_.' A couple metaphors popped into her head, and she smiled into Hermione's neck. 'An average person, their mind might be like a tree, growing and shifting and branching. Yours is more like the forest. Someone else, they might be a flame, but you are the wildfire. They a strike of lightning, you the storm. Not different, just more.' That she mostly meant. Something of an exaggeration, yes, but the right idea. But then she lied. It wasn't really what she thought, but it was what she thought she _might_ think if she had the same reactions to things normal people did. And she was pretty sure Hermione would appreciate hearing it, and it would cost Charissa nothing. 'I've never been in a mind so beautiful.'

To be perfectly honest, she didn't really have this sort of opinion when it came to people's minds one way or the other. While she used the word "beautiful" or sentiments like it sometimes in contexts she felt she should for whatever reason, the situations she legitimately thought the word applied to were comparatively few. People could be beautiful — though, she meant it entirely in the sense of physical attractiveness, a narrower application than other people intended. There was a sense of...completeness, she thought, in a perfectly formulated bit of arithmancy, or an elegantly phrased enchantment, the word applied there. She thought it, sometimes, when events came together in just the right way, she couldn't even explain what she meant. Irony, sort of, but not quite, a similar idea. That was really it. If she used the word for anything else, she was probably lying, or just saying what she thought she was expected to say. She'd found things _inside_ people's minds she thought were beautiful, knowledge or memories that appealed to one of those three things, but the structure of a person's mind itself? Not something that had occurred to her to think.

But by the way Hermione filled with an honestly confusing sense of...weakness, of wonder, of softness and warmth, Charissa knew she'd said the right thing.

Really, she almost thought Hermione might cry. Which was completely baffling to her. By the energy and light vibrant inside her, Charissa knew it wasn't _bad_ crying, but she still didn't entirely understand why people did that.

And, to be honest, the intensity of the affection Hermione was feeling for her right now was...somewhat unnerving. She didn't know how to react to that. She couldn't help feeling vaguely uncomfortable about it. It'd occurred to her before that, oh, how to put it? Hermione was a lot more...what, vulnerable? Charissa could hurt Hermione far more than Hermione could hurt her, and a lot more easily — and she didn't mean physically. There wasn't a single thing Hermione could possibly say, she didn't think, that would legitimately hurt her. At least not significantly. Anger her? Sure. Hurt her? Not really. She didn't really _get_ hurt the way other people did.

The same wasn't true the other way around. Not even a little bit. She was very much aware, standing here with fingers in Hermione's mind, that it would be all too easy to seriously hurt her. It wouldn't take much. Saying or doing the wrong thing at the wrong moment. Shite, she wouldn't be surprised if she could crush Hermione with a single sentence. She had all these _feelings_ , and they made her so...so... _fragile_.

And it wasn't right, she knew it wasn't. There was beauty in things properly balanced, there should be such a balance in all things, it was the way things should be. But she and Hermione were _not_ balanced. She was far more powerful than Hermione, and for once she didn't mean magically. Hermione was vulnerable in ways Charissa simply was not. And it wasn't right, it wasn't right that Charissa had such an advantage without Hermione realising it. Because she didn't, Hermione didn't understand how different she was. She could hurt Hermione _so easily_ , and...it made her uncomfortable, because she didn't _want_ to hurt Hermione. She _liked_ Hermione. If it were in her power to ensure Hermione would be safe and happy for the rest of her life, it would already be done. The thought that she could hurt Hermione so badly so _easily_...

Better not to think about it. Not that she could really help it, at the moment. With how Hermione's head was filled with thoughts and emotions and memories all centred on her, the thought was quite impossible to ignore.

This was making her far too uncomfortable. She needed something to distract herself.

So she pulled away from Hermione's neck, leaned up to kiss her.

It was only a few seconds later, unfortunately, that she heard a knock on the door. Hermione reacted to the sound immediately, yanking herself away from her, shivers of surprise and...well, not shame, exactly. Embarrassment? Something like that. She was having feelings, anyway. Charissa thought it was a little odd she hadn't yet broken Hermione of that kind of shyness, she guessed, but oh well. Actually, judging by the self-recrimination building a moment afterward, it was something Hermione was tired of herself. Hmm. A quick check, pulling from Hermione's mind somewhat, confirmed it was Perry, told to make sure she was actually getting ready, and not just in here with Hermione screwing each other until they couldn't see straight. That was apparently how Dad had put it, the exact words, Perry just rolling his eyes at him.

Despite the inconsistent window she had into his head — he blocked her out sometimes — Charissa still didn't understand why their father felt the need to tease the three of them about Hermione. Herself as a target, she kind of understood, but _all_ of them? Didn't make a lot of sense to her. He must be rather disappointed about it, though, since none of the three of them have ever reacted much at all.

At least he was mostly nice to Hermione. Charissa would hate to have to yell at him.

Well, not really, but it _would_ be uncomfortable.

Letting out a heavy sigh, she reached out toward the door, tore apart the sealing and privacy charms over it with ethereal fingers. 'I'll be down in a second, Perry.' No point in opening the door and having the actual conversation — Perry knew she could see everything going on in his head right now. The thought made most people uncomfortable, true, but Perry was one of the few who'd just shrugged and accepted it.

Of course, it was possible that had something to do with her being his smart, pretty, cool big sister. It had only taken a few seconds in his head for her to realise Perry apparently admired her quite a bit. Rather similar to how he felt about Mum, actually, which she thought might be a bit odd. From a normal person perspective, she meant. Not that the thought bothered her, it just explained a lot.

Anyway, with a bright acknowledgement, Perry turned and walked off.

Charissa took the couple steps over to her bag sitting on her bed, slung it over her shoulder. 'Well, I suppose I should get going, before I get too distracted some more.'

Before Hermione's mind was fully closed off again, throbbing silence stretching across the chaotic morass of thought and memory with meticulous care, she caught a few last glimpses of an affectionate sort of amusement. 'I suppose.' Then Hermione was sliding up to her, wrapping Charissa's free arm up in hers.

To be honest, Charissa _still_ didn't understand why Hermione felt the need to do things like this. She'd learned to just go with it by now.

Charissa was somewhat surprised to get down to the ground floor, looking into the living room, to find there was no one there. The kitchen was empty too. She must be later than she'd thought, everyone must be here already. A glance through a window showed a clump of people outside, so she headed for the door through the kitchen, walking into soft summer sunlight, breeze already fruitlessly tugging at her secured hair.

Yep, everyone was here already. Her father and her brothers, of course, and she wasn't entirely surprised to spot Sirius and Peter as well. Charissa felt a smile gently pulling at her lips when she spotted her mother. Though she was looking somewhat weird — where it was visible, her skin was a noticeably different shade than before, darkened by long exposure to tropical sun, but mostly covered by a thin, brilliantly white robe. Her hair was even faded a paler pink in a few spots.

She was looking a lot better, though. For as long as Charissa could remember, Mum had always looked...well, constantly exhausted. There'd always been deep bags around her eyes, face pale and drawn, moving with an odd heaviness, a slowness. But now she seemed far lighter, warmer, her bright, vibrant grin making her actually look her age for once.

Good. Looked like her extended holiday in Kemet had done good for her. That was good.

The last two in the little crowd were two obviously Kemetic women. They were too dark-skinned to be natively European, but it was their filmy, brightly-coloured dresses, leaving bare significantly more of their legs, shoulders, and midriffs than European mages usually did, that simply screamed Kemet to her. The two seemed somehow familiar, and it took a moment of confusion for Charissa to place them — the somewhat lighter, slightly older one was Axēkit, the young sorceress who had invited Mum to Kemet in the first place, the somewhat darker, slightly younger one, probably just a few years older than Charissa, was her wife... Charissa couldn't remember her name. She remembered it was Keshic, and almost impossible to pronounce. Bella, who'd gotten it on her first try with typical omniglot perfection, had spent some minutes trying to coach her and Hermione through it, never got it. At least, Bella had _said_ she wasn't pronouncing it right — she remembered it hadn't sounded any different to her.

While trying to remember the woman's name, walking up to the group, Charissa had sort of been staring at her, and semi-consciously slipped into her mind. She'd noticed before minds didn't really have an internal language — she wouldn't be surprised if this woman didn't share a single language in common with her, but she still understood all the thoughts and memories slipping through her just fine. When she realised what she was doing, Charissa focused on the woman's memories a little more intently, trying to redirect the flow of them to something she could get the woman's name from. Had to be in here somewhere...

She both felt and saw the woman twitch, eyes flicking over to Charissa, obviously feeling the intrusion. She heard the thought that she wasn't good enough with mind magic to keep Charissa to herself flicker through her head. Eyes flicking to Axēkit next to her, hand touching her elbow, saying something to her in Keshic. At least, she thought it was Keshic — Charissa was close enough to hear the words, knew she didn't speak that language, but she _could_ understand the intent in the woman's head just fine, reminding Axēkit Charissa was a legilimens. That was somewhat disorienting. Easy and casual, Axēkit reached up to place her hand on the woman's shoulder, magic gathering in her thick enough all the adults abruptly stopped chattering, forming into a shape she didn't recognise, and—

Charissa was violently thrown out of the woman's mind. Sudden and harsh enough she stumbled a little, wincing at the razor of white-hot pain shooting through her head, the sound drawing the eyes of everyone gathered, Hermione clutching slightly tighter at her arm. Okay. _That_ had been unpleasant...

'My apologies, young Charissa.' The words were in French, with an odd, somewhat thick accent. She glanced up to find Axēkit watching her, a slight smile on her lips but a severe glare in her eyes. Charissa noticed she didn't feel Axēkit at all — usually, when someone blocked their mind from her, she could feel a sort of cold, throbbing emptiness, but it was like Axēkit wasn't even there, no different from the air around her. She hadn't ever felt someone do that before, must be a Kemetic trick. And apparently not one she could expand to cover her wife, because Charissa could still feel something there, thoughts hidden behind the slippery screen of a paling against mind magic. 'I know that is uncomfortable, but...' Her lips tipping into a smirk, Axēkit ticked one finger back and forth chidingly, her tongue snicking. 'Bad girl. Elīc is mine.'

A few of the other people around tittered, or rolled their eyes, but Charissa just nodded. This woman's mind, Elīc's, was off-limits. Got it.

To be completely honest, she was a little surprised Elīc hadn't reacted to the obvious possessiveness Axēkit had said that with. Hermione would _never_ let Charissa get away with talking like that without comment. She still thought it, of course, but she always censored herself. Charissa couldn't help being distracted a couple seconds with wondering how exactly their relationship worked. It was fascinating.

Though, come to think of it, she guessed it was also possible Elīc simply didn't speak French.

The next few minutes, Charissa mostly just tried not to look bored. Everyone around her was talking about things. Sirius and Linden making a last nuisance of themselves, Hermione and Mum and Peter talking about something to do with House Cherwell, Dad and Axēkit seemingly in the middle of one of those social dominance dances. She guessed it was a bit complicated figuring out who was whose social better here — Kemet hadn't had anything even roughly equivalent to Noble Houses for millennia, but Axēkit was an already locally-famous sorceress from a family of some wealth and influence dating back to the Kemetic Renaissance nearly a thousand years ago now. Not that either of them seemed to actually care that much, ironic little smiles on both their faces.

She had no idea why they were bothering. People were weird.

And then everyone was saying goodbye, which was also boring. And at times annoying. Dad semi-sarcastically told her to behave — most of the sarcasm was because, she could tell even with his mind currently blocked, he really didn't expect her to. And then there was hugging, which she usually didn't like. Since she could see what other people got out of it now, at least she knew why other people did it, but it still didn't really do anything for her. She'd really rather not. She was somewhat surprised when she even had a hug forced on her from Peter, he usually didn't do that. A quick glance into his mind showed he was uncomfortable with her going so far away, almost paranoid something might happen to her. Okay. Weird.

And then Hermione was hugging her, which... Okay, she probably didn't get as much out of it as Hermione did, but it didn't bother her like it did most other people. Hermione and her mother, and sometimes Perry, were the exceptions, they were okay. After long seconds, Hermione's arms around her waist, breathing the familiar sweet smell of her hair Hermione pulled away. She gave a quick, uncomfortable glance at the people around them.

And then, before Charissa could even knew it was coming, Hermione was leaning down to kiss her.

Huh. Hadn't expected that. Hermione generally avoided doing this where other people could see. Interesting.

After a few seconds — far too brief for Charissa, but gift horses and all that — Hermione pulled away again. Looking somewhat uncomfortable, her eyes flicking to their audience, but still turning back to smile a little shyly down at Charissa. 'See you in a couple weeks.'

Charissa summoned a grin to her face, which actually wasn't too difficult in the circumstances. 'Have too much fun without me.'

Hermione blinked for a moment, seemingly confused by her slight modification to the usual phrase, but then let out a short snort of laughter, shaking her head to herself.

It took a little bit of dancing to arrange their departure. Apparently, each of the three adult women, who all knew shadow magic to various degrees of proficiency, were going to take one of the three of them. She guessed taking too many people at once was difficult, she wouldn't know. When exactly what Mum and the two were discussing was explained to them, Perry immediately latched on to Mum, so she guessed that was one. There was a lengthy hesitation, Axēkit glancing between Charissa and Linden, before turning to Elīc, muttering a few words. Elīc stepped much closer to Charissa the next moment, but not so close she didn't notice Axēkit's warning look over her shoulder.

Completely unnecessary. Charissa had already gotten the message.

After a couple more goodbyes passed back and forth, the foreign woman's arm was sliding around her shoulders, and magic exploded to life around her. Black rose up to swallow her vision, and Britain was gone.

* * *

 _July 4th, 1995_

* * *

Charissa slid into wakefulness, blinking up at the cool darkness around her. A quick reach confirmed Perry's and Linden's minds were both still unfocused in unconsciousness. It was early, she knew it was early, but there wouldn't be much point in trying to get to sleep again. She'd found she really only needed four or five hours these days, sometimes even less.

Slowly and carefully, she slid out of bed, trying not to jostle Perry too much. There were two beds in here, and she knew one was supposed to be for her and the other for Linden and Perry, but they'd been here two nights now, and Perry had chosen to sleep with her both times. She had complained about it a little, but she didn't actually care that much. As long as he stayed on his side of the bed, he could just do what he wanted, it didn't bother her. Though she had made clear she didn't plan on wearing anything other than she usually did (or didn't, as it were) — to both of them, technically, since Linden was also sharing a room with her — but they'd both just shrugged it off. Linden had looked a little uncomfortable when he'd stumbled on her changing yesterday, but otherwise.

In a few seconds, she had a thin houserobe wrapped around her, both wands strapped to her arms. She didn't need Hermione to actually be present to hear her teasing her for that, she could imagine it well enough. And then she walked out into the main body of the flat Mum had been living in the last few months, planning to set herself up on one of the sofas with a book.

And was somewhat surprised to find the lights already on. A bit dimly, just a soft glow illuminating the colourful patterns painted onto the walls, sequins on the backs and arms of furniture gleaming, but more than there would be in the middle of the night. A shaft of far brighter light was slicing into the room from the partially-open door of the kitchen. Mum must already be awake. Shrugging to herself, Charissa walked through the room, throwing a quick glance at Augí laid out sleeping on one of the chairs.

Charissa had been completely unsurprised when he'd shown up only a couple hours after they'd gotten here, all smooth and casual, as though he hadn't done anything at all impressive or unexpected. Mum had been the only person around who'd taken it as calmly as she had. When Charissa had explained they had an exceptionally powerful familiar bond — she'd realised by now Augí was _far_ more intelligent than a familiar should be, she assumed it had something to do with the Blessing — Axēkit had understood immediately, turned to explain it to her brothers. Familiars generally preferred to stay within at most a few kilometres of the human they were bonded to. No one was entirely sure how it worked, exactly what motivated them, but it presumably had something to do with the magic of the bond itself.

She'd expected Augí to want to follow her to Kemet, but hadn't bothered telling anyone, since she knew he was fully capable of getting here on his own.

Inside the kitchen, bright orange magical light gleaming off obsidian floors and counters, she found Mum sitting at one of the chairs, slightly yellowed papers strewn about that side of the low wooden table. Before she'd even fully stepped into the room, Mum said, 'You're leaking magic, Charissa.'

Charissa shrugged. 'Yeah, I know.' She had noticed that, though it was a little strange _how_ she'd noticed — it hadn't occurred to her it might be happening until she'd noted the effect it was having on other people, and she'd only known that because she could see in their bloody minds. 'I haven't gotten any better at preventing that.' True, she hadn't exactly been trying that hard, but she hadn't made any progress at all. She couldn't even feel it happening.

Augí had suggested it was possible the Blessing was sabotaging her. The one time she'd felt what it felt, so much as a semi-sentient mass of magic was capable of feeling anything, it'd _wanted_ to be noticed. It was very possible it didn't want her hiding her abilities, so would intentionally cripple any efforts to mask herself. So far as such a thing could do anything intentionally.

The thought that she had some foreign magic attached to her and doing things with her against her will would normally make her extremely uncomfortable. But there wasn't really anything she could do to stop it, so she'd just shrugged it off by now.

'Oh, well,' Mum said with a sigh. 'Not the end of the world, I guess.' She looked up from her papers, turning to gaze at her through the thin cloud of steam rising from the mug in her hand. 'Any particular reason you're up so early?'

Taking a seat around a corner from Mum, Charissa shrugged. 'Not really. I just don't seem to need very much sleep lately.' A thought occurred to her, and she frowned for a second. 'You don't think that could be the Blessing, do you?'

Mum stared at her for a moment, a slightly unfocused look in her eyes as she flipped through the incomplete knowledge she had on the subject — or so Charissa assumed, Mum always shielded her mind from her. 'Ah, that is possible, I guess. I can't say for sure one way or the other. Have you noticed anything else like that?'

'Little things. The most obvious is probably Augí.' Mum just nodded, clearly having come to the same conclusion. 'Wandless magic is a lot easier, I told you that already. Ah, I barely feel stinging jinxes anymore, and I can't remember noticing a single bruise since the Lake. I'm not invincible, obviously—' She vividly remembered a nasty bit of lightning magic she'd been hit with in one of their group fights last month, that had _fucking hurt_ , had been covered in burns for hours afterward. '—but the little things don't seem to bother me as much anymore.' She pointed at the odd little glass pitcher sitting in the middle of the table, filled with some kind of black liquid.

'Coffee. They drink a lot of coffee here.'

Oh, all right, then. Not her favourite, but it would do. A glance at one of the cabinets, and the door was swinging open, revealing a collection of drinkware inside. Charissa flicked a finger, bringing a mug much like Mum's sailing smoothly over to her.

While Charissa set herself up, Mum said, sounding somewhat amused, 'I'd say wandless magic is easier. It took me a year or two of practice before I could do that sort of thing that easily.'

Charissa tried not to roll her eyes at that. Yeah, it _had_ taken Mum a couple years of practice, but she'd also been eight or nine at the time. Not exactly comparable. 'I have been practising. It's not that difficult.' Abruptly, she realised Mum had told her not to work on wandless magic without her. 'Er, I mean, just little stuff. Moving things around and the like. Nothing too complicated or potentially dangerous.'

'Relax, Charissa, I'm not annoyed.'

'Right.' Good. Mum was on the short list of people she really didn't want to make angry if she could help it. 'As long as I'm thinking about it, any new ideas about who did the Blessing in the first place?'

Letting out a thin sigh, Mum shook her head. 'Nothing new, no. Court of the Earth, almost definitely, but beyond that. I asked _ti-Nīv-etès-Wōt_ if she knows anything, and she said she'd look into it. Haven't heard back.'

'Er, who?'

'Local immortal,' Mum said with a little shrug. 'I'm sure you're heard of her, she's one of the Two Ladies. Very old, possibly _the_ first historical metamorph or Parselmouth we actually know about.'

Ah, yes, Charissa knew who she was referring to. She was sort of surprised Mum had _actually met_ the millennia-old sorceress once worshipped as the divine guardian of all of Lower Egypt, but okay. Charissa took a sip of her coffee — then she winced, dribbled a little more honey to it. Mum brewed her coffee _extremely_ strong, almost forgotten. 'To be honest, the thought of never figuring out who did it doesn't particularly bother me.'

'It would be better to know. Blessing you was an investment of the clan's life and magic, it didn't cost them nothing. They will certainly contact you eventually, and they will certainly expect things of you. The sooner we know who it is, the more prepared we can be to deal with them.'

Charissa just shrugged. She guessed that made sense. Well, a little sense. She was pretty sure if whoever had Blessed her had expected anything of her directly, they wouldn't have erased her memory of doing it after the fact. Sort of hard for someone to be grateful to you if they don't remember you doing anything for them in the first place. Charissa understood herself well enough to know she would have been difficult enough to convince to play nice in the first place — not making any contact at all the way whoever it was was doing didn't exactly endear them to her. If they showed up and tried to start ordering her around, she was pretty sure she'd just tell them to piss off.

She guessed it was very possible they could just kill her for refusing to cooperate. But, to be entirely honest, if her choices were eternal slavery to a family of presumably self-righteous arseholes, or telling those same self-righteous arseholes to go fuck themselves, even if it resulted in her immediate execution, she'd probably pick the latter. She guessed that probably said something about her.

Anyway, she couldn't think of anything else to say on this topic. Moving on. 'What are you doing up so early yourself?'

'I don't exactly sleep that much either,' Mum said, shrugging a little. 'But I thought I should be up for when Metsīv gets here. I expect her to be early.'

'Metsīv?' Pretty sure she'd actually pronounced that right. It was simple word, by Kemetic standards.

Mum nodded, then snorted, rolling her eyes a little. 'Well, technically, her name is Mītsavī, but everyone calls her Metsīv. No idea why, but I don't really care. I do have lessons and such to go to and, sort of in exchange for teaching me, I've been roped into giving some advanced duelling classes for some of the older students. I have cut back on my schedule for the couple weeks you're are going to be here, but I couldn't cancel everything completely. So, Metsīv is going to keep an eye on you three while I can't.'

Charissa felt the scowl fall over her own face. 'I don't need someone to watch me. I'm not a child.'

'I know you're not.' Somewhat to her disappointment, Mum didn't seem at all affected by her annoyance. 'Honestly, it's more for your brothers than it is for you. You don't have to go along with them — you can just spend the day in the library or something if you like — but you might want to. I know Metsīv was planning on taking you three on a trip out to a few places in _ti-Wàha_ today, you might find it interesting. The village there is rather nice, and there are a lot of old ruins in the area the mages have preserved, a few they've restored a bit. I suppose, think of her as a guide, if that annoys you less.'

Well. That might not be _too_ bad, then. Some of that stuff was interesting. Yesterday they'd gone out to a reconstruction of the city centre as it'd been about thirty-three hundred years ago. It was a modern reimagining of what it had been, not even at the same physical location — the original city, referred to with a different name and long abandoned, was a muggle archaeological site now — but it'd still been fascinating. It was slightly humiliating, yes, but as long as they were doing interesting things she'd probably be able to ignore it. She'd just have to see.

It was only a few minutes later, filled with another of Mum's lectures, this time on runic casting, when the air was broken with a low tone softly reverberating through the air. 'Ah,' Mum said, pushing herself to her feet, 'that'd be Metsīv.' Charissa followed Mum back into the living room, swirling her mostly-emptied coffee in one hand, but stopped just inside, leaning against the doorframe. She wasn't entirely sure if she wanted to meet this person she'd be stuck with for a while. This Metsīv was basically supposed to be her childminder, and if that thought wasn't _very_ annoying, it was possible she'd be—

Charissa broke off as soon as the door into the hallway opened, Metsīv stepping through while chattering away with Mum in Kemetic, Charissa's eyebrows gradually trailing up her forehead. She was...

Charissa thought she was a handful of years older than herself — probably too old to be a Hogwarts student, but only by a year or two. She had the same dark hair and deep brown skin almost everyone around here seemed to. Like most Kemetic women, her hair was cut abnormally short by European standards, the freely hanging strands, night black broken here and there by glimmering glass beads plaited into colourful strings, not even reaching her shoulders. And Charissa did definitely notice her skin tone — considering how comparatively brief Kemetic dress was, there was quite a bit of it open to the air. Arms entirely bare, her left shoulder and much of her upper chest, the bright orange cloth of her top loosely draped over her breasts, splitting into little fine threads not hiding many details about her middle _at all_ , another piece of a slightly darker shade wrapped about her waist into a skirt, the fluttering tatters of fabric fading out significantly above her knees, unbroken skin all the way from the burnished leather of her sandals up and up, and Charissa found herself unconsciously tilting her head a little, and up and up...

Well, she was extremely fucking beautiful was what she was.

Mum was entirely forgiven for arranging this without asking her opinion beforehand.

She found herself smiling a little as Mum led the woman over to her, made introductions quick. Slipping into her mind a bit, Charissa had to hold back the urge to smirk when it very _quickly_ became clear Metsīv didn't know any mind magic — she couldn't feel Charissa there at all. 'Metsīv, I am pronouncing that right?' she said, keeping her voice as smooth and casual as she could. In French, Mum had said it was the only language they both knew.

Giving her a bright, toothy smile, the woman said, 'Not exactly right, but very close. Good enough.' She had a bit of an oddly thick accent, but it wasn't hard to understand. Charissa had heard worse. And it wasn't like she couldn't just pick out what Metsīv meant from her head if she really had to. Even now, Metsīv was thinking to herself Charissa was somewhat older than she'd expected when Mum had asked her to watch her kids, she'd have to reevaluate how she was going to handle them a little. Wouldn't want to come off as too patronising, she'd always hated it when people did that when she'd been Charissa's age, especially when the person being annoying wasn't even that much older than her. Maybe she would—

As Metsīv flicked through her plans for the next few days, rearranging a few details, Charissa felt her smile twitch slightly wider.

After a couple more comments back and forth, Mum was leading Metsīv away again, over toward their bedroom to introduce her to the boys next. Charissa tilted her head a bit, but not _too_ much, so it wouldn't be obvious if one of them glanced back. She couldn't help trying to get an even slightly better angle though. The way the thin little fluttering strips of cloth that made up Metsīv's skirt were flicking against the back of her thighs was very eye-drawing.

Oh, yes, Charissa thought, her smile shifting into a smirk. Metsīv didn't know it yet. But she would be hers.

* * *

Charissa waited for long minutes, watching Metsīv's thoughts drift by as her focus gradually shifted, turning more solidly back to their surroundings. She even held in her magic as much as she could — that wasn't very much, granted, but still. She didn't want to be too overwhelming, after all. She wouldn't want to scare Metsīv off.

Metsīv had brought the three of them to a large oasis a bit to the north, the depression dotted with both muggle and magical towns. After a bit of wandering about one of the villages, they'd apparated off again — Metsīv had been pleasantly surprised Charissa was fully capable of following her through apparation even if she didn't know where she was going, so she didn't have to skip back and forth — coming to one of the reconstructions done in more recent centuries. Though, this one was in use again, after a gap of a millennium or two.

Apparently, sprawled along what had once been the shoreline — the lake was significantly smaller than it'd been in antiquity — there had for some centuries stood a retreat used by the royal family, back when the monarchy had actually existed. Eventually, it had fallen out of favour for whatever reason, and had been left to a succession of local governors and religious cults, eventually abandoned entirely. There hadn't been much left in the end, crumbled against the elements, the locals appropriating stone for new construction.

The site was now one of the more important ones in Kemet, due to comparatively recent events. During that whole cultural revival thing that had happened some centuries ago, the fledgling independent magical state that would eventually become modern Kemet took a bit of a gamble, and spent a possibly unreasonable amount of time and resources building a new palace on the same site. Scholars at the time had been going over the historical record, and there was common consensus that _most_ of their ancestors' gods were all myths, but a few were actual people. Immortals, usually. The two most prominent, the two almost everyone agreed _definitely_ existed, were the Two Ladies. Since they were immortals of some kind, had lived for thousands of years, it was thought they were probably _still_ alive — if the Persians or the Greeks had successfully killed them, after all, they certainly would have bragged about it, if only to further demoralise the Egyptians. So, once the palace was done, they had announced they had built the place as a home for the Two Ladies should they ever have want of it, got the news out as far as they could.

Within a few months, both of them had turned up, openly and publicly for the first time in nearly two millennia. They'd been a visible if quiet presence in Kemetic society ever since, teaching old spells and especially old wards or enchantments that had been lost over the centuries, occasionally acting as advisers to the leaders of Kemet's elected government. This palace was considered their primary residence to this day, though the private rooms were obviously off-limits to visitors, and it wasn't always occupied. Though, their guide (not Metsīv, someone on the palace staff) had said one of them was in at the moment — this was where Mum had met, er, however the name was pronounced, Charissa had forgotten. The cobra one.

Apparently, when the two had first shown up that day long ago, they hadn't announced themselves at all. The staff had been sitting down to lunch when they'd belatedly realised they had two extra people, and had gone a bit nuts when they'd explained who they were. Listening to the guide tell them the story in a hushed, reverent voice, standing in the same low dining hall it'd actually happened in, Charissa hadn't quite been able to hold back her laughter.

It was so ridiculous, she couldn't help it. Sounded like her kind of people, these two.

She'd been a little worried Metsīv would have been annoyed with her for that, but it turned out she thought it was as funny as Charissa did. Which she only knew because Charissa laughing had brought a memory to life in Metsīv's mind of herself during her first visit here, on what seemed like a school trip as a young child, younger than Perry was now, watching a dramatic reenactment of the whole thing the staff had put on for the children, and bursting into helpless giggles loud and long enough she'd had to leave the room.

So, while some of it was interesting she guessed, and there were parts of the palace that were rather pretty, Charissa was still bored. And when she was bored, she found something to distract herself with.

And, unfortunately for Metsīv, Charissa found her _very_ distracting. She probably wasn't being very nice, but she found she didn't really care that much.

At one point, when she'd been particularly bored walking around, she'd remembered something she'd read about a style of spellcasting done using the voice as a focus, projecting power out over sound. Out of curiosity, she'd decided to see if she could do that sort of thing, and it'd only taken her a moment to think of an idea. She constantly had magic leaking out of her, she knew that. But normally it was just undifferentiated energy, maybe touched slightly by her moods, but just magic. She'd wondered if it were possible to _intentionally_ put things into it, sort of like a low-level compulsion, influencing the emotional state of people around her. It wasn't the exact same principle, but it was very similar.

She could confidently say that experiment was successful. She'd done her best to force a sense of withering, desperate lust into the magic flowing through her, cast it out across the air toward Metsīv, and had been, to be honest, somewhat surprised when it had taken right away, slipping into Metsīv's mind, colouring her thoughts noticeably. Not very much, just a little, but enough she could tell it was working. Though, it seemed she couldn't aim it very well — Metsīv was far from the only one affected. She was even hitting her brothers a little bit, potentially awkward, but it was a rather weak compulsion, and it seemed to be affecting them even less than Metsīv. Probably because of how young they were, that was her guess.

That wasn't all she was doing to her either. Every once in a while, she would slip out a finger of magic. No particular charm, really, at least not one she had a name for, just a tendril of hot, slippery, tingly power, brushing just for an instant against an arm, her lower back. Once rather far up her thigh before Metsīv had noticeably jumped, so Charissa had backed off, not wanting to draw too much attention.

Metsīv had figured out by now what was happening, of course, she wasn't that stupid. At least, she was almost entirely certain. Every time Metsīv got a bit too flustered, too uncomfortable, Charissa pulling away to give her a moment to recover, she would turn to stare at Charissa for a few seconds. And, since Charissa was still in her head in those moments, she knew Metsīv knew it was her. With a slight tinge of doubt, because she wasn't entirely sure what Charissa was trying to accomplish with it. After a couple hours of it happening, over and over and over, Metsīv eventually came to the conclusion Charissa was just messing with her. Expressing her displeasure with being dragged around, sort of.

She'd almost laughed when Metsīv had considered the idea Charissa might be legitimately trying to seduce her only for an instant before dismissing it out of hand. Silly girl.

But anyway, the tour of the areas guests were actually allowed to enter was over now, and they were being led back to the enclosed courtyard. In the centuries since the Two Ladies had returned, this place had become sort of a...pilgrimage site, she guessed, also playing host to plenty of foreign tourists. So in the courtyard just inside the gates was an open air restaurant sort of thing. Metsīv suggested they stop to eat before going anywhere else, and her brothers both only too eagerly agreed. Charissa guessed it was getting sort of late for lunch, but she hadn't been paying that much attention. On the way to one of the tables, she put herself in head of Metsīv, and very consciously put a bit of a sway to her hips. Since she was wearing local dress — she'd noticed almost right away the sun didn't bother her like it did Mum and her brothers, she assumed because of the Blessing, so it'd seemed the thing to do — it should actually be visible.

She couldn't help a smirk when when she felt Metsīv get slightly distracted. Apparently, Charissa's efforts over the last hours hadn't been entirely fruitless.

Hmm, maybe she could try...

Charissa didn't get into one of the low little chairs right away, instead turning to Metsīv, her voice as casual and innocent as she could make it. 'There wouldn't happen to be a toilet around?'

Metsīv nodded, pointing off toward one side of the courtyard. 'Yeah, follow the signs.'

She did her absolute best not to smirk. 'Those signs wouldn't happen to be in a language I can actually read?'

For a second, Metsīv just blinked at her. Then she let out a sigh, pushed herself up from the chair she'd just taken a second ago, quick confirmed the boys would be okay on their own for a couple minutes before leading Charissa off. They dipped into the thin shadows of one of the adjacent halls, Metsīv making for a hallway off in some direction. She stopped a moment to point at a sign on the wall, telling her that word there was the one she was looking for, Charissa should probably try to memorise it. Then leading her down the hallway, to another corner.

Charissa wasn't paying attention, really. Most of this, she'd just been watching Metsīv walk, but taking the corner between hallways, she'd glanced for a second in the opposite direction. A short distance down the hallway it opened up into another hall. There was something sort of odd about this one. The quality of the light was noticeably different, seeming to hang in the air in diffuse clouds somewhat over head-height, strewn across the floor...something, she couldn't quite see it from here. Stopping in the middle of the intersection Metsīv was trying to lead her through, Charissa asked, 'What's that over there?'

'Erm, well, that's...' She noticed Metsīv sounded rather uncomfortable all of a sudden — a dip into Metsīv's thoughts showed she was worried Charissa was going to run over there, make a nuisance of herself. It wasn't a place people were technically prohibited from entering, but it was a special place, deserving a certain degree of respect, proper conduct. Unfortunately, Metsīv wasn't thinking explicitly about what it was.

Well, Charissa would just have to make her, then. She started off without a word, quickly sliding down the hallway, trying not to smile too much at how Metsīv scrambled after her, asking her what she thought she was doing. Silly. She came to the hall, stopped to look around.

She couldn't tell exactly how high the ceiling was, the diffuse blue glow turning the details muddy, but it was probably only two times the width of the hallway she'd just left. Granted, they were rather wide hallways, a good five or six metres wide easy, so the place was rather large, stretching north-to-south a few times further than east-to-west. In a wide band down the centre of the hall the tiling was instead a somewhat muddy blue, seemingly animated, flickering and shifting, looking much like a river flowing north. The things on the floor she hadn't been able to make out before looked to be some sort of reed, stretching up to about her waist, some as high as her shoulder, probably kept somewhat low to not obscure the walls, vividly painted corner to corner with unfamiliar images and inscrutable archaic hieroglyphs. The plants were obviously artificial, though she wasn't entirely sure what they were made of. Charissa reached a hand forward toward the nearest one, watching it wave a little in the barest motion of the air, wondering how exactly—

Her hand didn't make it all the way, Metsīv's coming down hard around her wrist. 'Charissa!' she hissed, her voice a thick whisper, 'what are you _doing?'_

She turned to shoot Metsīv a raised eyebrow. Wow, the woman certainly did look very uncomfortable, eyes darting around, worrying they would be caught. Not that Metsīv evidently thought they would be in all that much trouble if they were caught, this was just somewhere they weren't supposed to be, it would be uncomfortable, and that she was found here would certainly get back to her family, which would be uncomfortable all over again. But her thoughts still weren't specific enough, and none of her convenient memories held the proper information either. 'The plants are fake, I was just curious.' She glanced at where Metsīv's fingers were still clutched around her wrist. Ruthlessly suppressing the smirk trying to pull at her lips, she jerked her hand around, slipping her fingers through Metsīv's, started dragging her off to the space between the wall and the reeds, pointing up at the hieroglyphs. 'What does all this say, anyway?'

'Er...' It took a short moment for Metsīv to focus again, partially shaking off that feeling she _really_ shouldn't be here, partially distracted by the fact that Charissa hadn't let go of her hand — she'd noticed before people were weirdly fixated on that, which she still didn't understand. For good measure, Charissa shot off another flash of lust-addled magic at her, this time taking hard enough Metsīv twitched, forcefully shook her head, turned to face the writing on the wall. 'Ah, I'm not sure. It should be something about one of the Ladies, but...'

Letting out a long hum, Charissa dropped her hand, slowly slipping along behind her. Close enough she could feel the heat of Metsīv's body against her skin, breathe the unfamiliar spicy scent that followed her around. Her lips twitched into a smirk as she noticed Metsīv's shoulders visibly tense, her thoughts growing slightly jumbled, trying to focus on reading the ancient script in front of her, trying to shove off the slick sweetness of the magic sliding through her, trying to not think about _Lily Black's underage daughter_ , what was she _thinking_... She didn't bother striking the amusement from her face, Metsīv wasn't facing this direction anyway. 'And here I thought you were supposed to be a local. Do I need to get my mum to find us a different guide?'

Despite how distracted she was, Metsīv still managed to be a little annoyed. 'Not everyone can read this, you know.' Pointing a little to the right, she said, 'That right there, not sure how to read that, but I'm positive it's some verbal thing that was only used in Uxesic, and that was over three thousand years ago, a lot of people never—'

Yeah, that was as far as Metsīv got in her ramble. Charissa was done listening.

She darted forward, her right arm bracing along the top of Metsīv's shoulders, her left wrapping around her waist. Before Metsīv could barely get her gasp all the way out, Charissa was pushing with her right arm, her hips against Metsīv's, forcing her against the wall a short distance away. Charissa was extremely distracted, her face buried in Metsīv's fragrant hair, the skin of her lower back and her legs delicious against hers, but she was still present enough to notice Metsīv wasn't pushing back all that much, mere token protests, feeling oddly rigid, head swirling with shocked disbelief.

'Now, now.' Charissa nosed through her hair, bringing her face in toward the crook of Metsīv's neck, smiling to herself at the way Metsīv shook just noticeably, her breath already unsteady. Those little bursts of magic must have been having more of an effect than she'd realised. 'Is it really that surprising? I mean, really...' Charissa moved her left hand through the bare sliver of space she allowed between Metsīv and the wall, sliding around to trail her fingers, slowly back and forth, low over Metsīv's middle, just above the hem of her skirt. 'I find it hard to believe you haven't realised how beautiful you are by now. I can't be the first.'

Oh, she wasn't, true. Though, judging by the thoughts and memories flicking before Charissa's eyes, Metsīv didn't have a whole lot of experience in such things. From the looks of it, she'd been rather sheltered before starting the equivalent of her mastery study, and that was very recently. Charissa had gotten the impression Metsīv was from a prominent, wealthy family, it looked like she'd been mostly home schooled, or something. Not _completely_ inexperienced, of course, but she'd only ever kissed four people total. 'I, I didn't think you were...' Serious, she meant, Metsīv hadn't thought Charissa was legitimately interested, just messing with her. Metsīv shuddered for a few seconds, _quite_ effectively distracted by Charissa's breath sliding along her neck, fingers dipping gradually lower. 'We shouldn't, we can't do this here.'

'What is this place? You never did say.'

Metsīv had to breathe for a moment, high and thin. 'Ah, that's the shrine right there.' She pulled one arm away from the wall to point to the north — she tried to turn away from the wall doing it, but Charissa didn't let up the pressure, Metsīv's shoulders held firm against the stone.

It took a second for Charissa to realise what she meant. They'd spoken of that in the little tour: people often came here hoping to meet with the famous immortals, for one reason or another, meetings that would be held in one particular room in the palace, which they referred to as a shrine in French, for some reason. 'Oh. And?'

'Charissa, it— _It's not empty_.'

She blinked. Oh. _That's_ why Metsīv was so uncomfortable, one of the most highly-revered individuals in the entire history of her people, to the point that she had been literally worshipped for millennia, was right over there. Charissa glanced that way quick, squinted a bit to make out an archway thick with deep curtains, blotting out any detail of the room inside. Even from here, it only took her a second to feel the privacy charms layered thick into the thing. 'It's silenced. I'm pretty sure she can't hear us.'

'That's really not...'

Metsīv trailed off as Charissa leaned up a bit, head turned a bit to let the curve of Metsīv's ear slip somewhat between her lips. She paused for a second at the ecstatic thrill she noticed flash through Metsīv, frowning to herself a little. Then she smirked — _someone_ has a weak spot. She moved again, sliding up, breathing out slightly harshly to make sure Metsīv would hear it, letting the edge of a tooth and just the tip of her tongue slid along the shell of her ear.

It was a bit baffling, really. Metsīv let out a long breath in a high, surprisingly loud whimper, her neck relaxing, head tilting back. She noticed Metsīv's had gotten suddenly unsteady, saw in her head she wasn't really paying attention to trying to remain standing, so she worked a quick sticking charm to adhere her chest to the wall, keep her from falling over. She caught in her peripheral vision Metsīv's fingers clutching at the wall next to her, despite there really being nothing to hold on to. That seemed a rather ridiculously exaggerated reaction to something so small. Not that Charissa was complaining, really, it was just a little silly.

Did make her feel a bit smug, though. But then, getting girls to make interesting noises always did.

After just a few seconds of breathless disorientation, Metsīv was moving again, her left hand trying to come around into Charissa's hair, her own head turning to try and face her. Charissa saw her intent in her head easy enough, was completely incapable of keeping herself from smirking. A second had her right arm moved from the back of Metsīv's shoulders, instead wrapping under her chin and around her neck, tilted a bit to find Metsīv's searching lips with her own.

She grinned at the tingling mix of pleasure and victory running along her spine, not at all caring at the moment that Metsīv was a bit awkward, obviously hadn't done this a whole lot. Didn't matter at the moment. If Charissa had anything to say about it, Metsīv would be getting a _lot_ of practice over the next couple weeks. But she wasn't particularly interested in kissing Metsīv right now. Sure, she liked kissing fine, but she was well aware Metsīv would be second-guessing this once she was on her own again, where Charissa couldn't preempt her doubts before they could form. It was very possible Metsīv could decide this was a terrible idea, by the time she saw her again tomorrow completely closed off to her.

So, she had to give her _incentive_.

She was honest enough with herself to know at least _part_ of it was simply because she liked making girls make interesting noises.

A quick glance put a silencing up around them, and Charissa slid her fingers further down, carefully working under Metsīv's clothes. She jerked a couple inches away from her, a bit thin and breathless, 'Charissa, what are...you...'

'Hmm.' She lowered her shoulder a bit, shifted around Metsīv slightly, giving herself a better angle. Metsīv was breathing high and quick against her, back pushing at Charissa's chest, stomach at her wrist, seeming half-panicked and half-ecstatic. Finding Metsīv's ear again, she hissed, 'What does it seem like I'm doing?'

'I... I don't...'

If Metsīv'd had any idea what she was trying to say, Charissa _might_ have stopped, waited for at least a couple seconds. But she really didn't. So there didn't seem to be much point in it.

Her fingers finally made it to the right spot, the familiar feel of soft, smooth flesh bringing a hot thrill pounding through Charissa's blood, and she couldn't help smirking into Metsīv's hair as a sudden sense of shocked pleasure brought a screeching halt to all the jumbled nonsense going on in her head. Metsīv let out her breath in a low moan, head tipping forward, neck curling slightly awkwardly around Charissa's arm, her forehead coming to rest with a slight thud against the stone of the wall. Close against her back, she could feel little shuddering twitches running up Metsīv's spine with the slightest movement of Charissa's fingers, her breath high and thin, broken occasionally with little whimpers she was obviously _trying_ to hold in, but Metsīv simply didn't have the control for that right now, too sudden, too unprepared, too _much_.

Charissa had to admit, she found people's thoughts and feelings during sex absolutely fascinating. The way their minds gradually focused, with each touch turning further and further inward, blotting out all the constantly flickering memories of their past, eventually even all rational consciousness. A few increasingly incoherent thoughts would dribble through, yes, but the mind became focused only on the present moment, an incandescent cacophony of sensation of feeling, so bright that in some people it almost burned looking at it. Charissa couldn't even explain how or why, exactly. There was just too much, sometimes, too intense, like staring too directly at the sun.

And Metsīv was one of the brighter ones. She didn't look away, though. The entire process was far too interesting. Besides, she didn't really want to. This wasn't something she would say out loud to most anyone, because she knew they'd likely think she was unnecessarily full of herself and that wasn't really something she wanted to deal with, but it always did make her feel rather great, actually. A sort of self-congratulation she knew most people would find irritatingly smug. Especially since Metsīv's mind was pulling away from her surroundings especially quickly, incapable of focusing on anything beyond how Charissa was making her feel, the thought-obliterating waves of hot pleasure making her noticeably shiver against her. Yes, she did feel rather proud of herself at the moment.

A thought occurred to her and, before she could stop herself, she tipped her lips back up to Metsīv's ear, moved her right arm a bit, slipping around so her upper arm was under Metsīv's chin, hand curling around over her own shoulder, tightening a bit toward her. Just a bit, not a lot. Enough Metsīv could _definitely_ feel it there, but not enough to actually restrict her breathing at all, not enough to actually hurt. Metsīv was still distracted from Charissa's fingers for a moment, the swirling lights in her mind broken momentarily by a mixed sense of surprise, confusion, slight hints of fear. Her hands moved from where they'd been fruitlessly clutching at the wall, coming to rest on Charissa's arm. Not trying to pull it away, just sitting there. Charissa wasn't sure why, and she could see Metsīv didn't really know what she was doing either.

But her smirk was still twitching wider anyway. Hissing right against her ear, tingling with vicarious pleasure at the shudder crawling over Metsīv's skin, Charissa whispered, 'You've been quite neglected, haven't you. Why, you would almost think no one's ever—' Charissa tightened her arm, just slightly, a little extra sudden pressure in her fingers, drawing a sharp, partially-strangled moan from Metsīv. '—touched you before.'

Which wasn't entirely true, Charissa knew. She'd caught from Metsīv's mind a few minutes ago that Charissa was fourth. Two men since she'd started her mastery study — one had been her boyfriend for a few months, one a random shag after some party or something Metsīv felt a bit embarrassed about now, for some reason Charissa hadn't read. Before that, one other event she'd been able to tell Metsīv preferred not to think about. On a trip with her family somewhere, Charissa hadn't caught where, she'd been sharing a room with one of her female cousins, and in the middle of the night once her cousin's hands had been on her completely uninvited, and it'd been unexpected, and confusing, but Metsīv hadn't cared even a little bit. Of course, now, even though it was years later, she could still barely look that cousin in the eye, but she hadn't minded it at the time. Which, to be completely honest, was unfathomable to Charissa — the shame part, she meant, of course, she had cousins she would shag in a heartbeat — but she understood by now she didn't think about such things the way a lot of people did.

It really was quite fascinating what she could learn about people in a few seconds without them even realising it.

'And you'd let me do it, wouldn't you.' She saw the dim sense of confusion in Metsīv's mind, almost overshadowed by everything else. So she tightened her arm slightly further, the increasing pressure raising a half-terrified half-excited thrill, Metsīv quite obviously realising _exactly_ what Charissa was talking about. 'You are quite _desperate_ , aren't you.' She felt the urge rising in Metsīv's mind, so she paused a moment, waiting for the gasping moan clawing at her throat to expend itself. In fact, she stopped moving entirely, fingers still against hot, delicious skin.

She couldn't help another smirk as the moan was immediately followed by a thin, needy whimper, Metsīv's thoughts showing she was aware she sounded slightly pathetic, but she entirely didn't care, she didn't care, she just didn't want Charissa to stop, she _needed_ her to—

'Hmm, yes, very desperate.' She didn't bother holding in her amusement, chuckling under her breath straight into Metsīv's ear. 'But don't worry. I'm going to be here for two weeks, you know. There will be _plenty_ of time. If that's what you want of course.'

She didn't need Metsīv to say anything. Not that her throat seemed to be working at the moment anyway, Charissa doubted she was capable of coherent speech. It was with just the _barest_ sense of mortification, almost entirely deadened by lust, that Metsīv was thinking to herself that it didn't matter what any of her friends would think, it didn't matter that her parents would probably be horrified with her, it _didn't matter_ that Charissa's mother might be angry, it _didn't matter_ that Charissa was significantly younger than her, it _didn't matter_ that she'd be leaving Kemet in a couple weeks and they'd probably never see each other again. She didn't care, she _didn't care_ , as long as Charissa _didn't stop touching her_ , she—

Charissa smirked.

She didn't hear them coming. Or even feel them, their presence hidden entirely.

‹You know, I have the suspicion this should technically be considered blasphemy.›

«And you are so overly cautious concerning such things, of course.»

‹That it doesn't offend me personally doesn't mean I am incapable of recognising such when I see it.›

«Yes, yes, make your excuses. Whatever justification you need to feel you are free to tease them, I won't argue.»

‹Thank you, I appreciate that.›

Only half paying attention to Metsīv tense against her, her mind suddenly cold and sharp with horror and humiliation, Charissa raised an eyebrow, turned to glance over her shoulder. That was Parseltongue — one natural speaker and one not, the oddly empty-sounding speech of someone like Luna, who had simply learned it. _Weird_ Parseltongue, at that. Usually, Parseltongue sounded a bit...childish, she guessed, simplistic statements consisting of basic vocabulary. Granted, the number of people she'd heard speak Parseltongue were comparatively few, but that was always the impression she'd gotten. Both these speakers sounded...mature, articulate. A sense of power and competence and authority carried over their intonation she'd never heard before. It was weird.

After a second, she spotted them, standing a short distance away. Waist-deep in the artificial reeds, for some reason. Both were women, looking only a couple years older than Metsīv, wearing somewhat more formal variations on local dress, cloth embroidered with detailed patterns in glimmering, metallic thread, one wearing a variety of local jewelry gleaming gold and blue-green. Local jewelry style, yes, but she didn't really look like a local to Charissa. She seemed too fair-skinned — bronzed somewhat by long exposure to tropical sun, yes, but not naturally coloured — and her hair was a deep auburn, tinged noticeably lighter and redder at the edges, eyes a bright bluish-green, to match the gemstones she bore. The other looked far more like a native, with the dark eyes and brown skin and black hair she would expect.

Which just went to show how much she knew.

The paler one, stepping closer out of the reeds, said something in Kemetic, and the lingering lust in Metsīv's head was quickly boiled away by a rising panic. With a sigh, Charissa pulled away, dispelling the sticking charm holding Metsīv to the wall as she went. Before she could barely blink, Metsīv had spun around, sunk to her knees, hands flat on the floor and head bowed. Still a bit breathless, she stuttered out something sounding apologetic in the same language.

Huh.

While the two spoke back and forth a few more times — it could just be Charissa's imagination, since she couldn't feel the woman there at all, but she seemed just a little amused to her — she eventually noticed the darker stranger was staring at her. In the next moment... She wasn't sure how to put words to it. She knew the woman was in her mind, obviously scanning her thoughts and memories, but...she was so _fast_. Not even fast like Severus was fast, latching on to a single thought or memory and following connected ones so quickly Charissa could barely keep up, no. This woman seemed to comb through Charissa's entire being _all at once_ , an examination she could feel sifting through all of her memories almost simultaneously, only a couple blinks passing before Charissa was pretty sure the woman had seen _everything_.

She could only stand there for the next few seconds, staring wide-eyed back. She hadn't even known something like that was _possible_. The implication that the woman could process all that information at once, so quickly... She didn't know what to do with that thought.

The woman just raised an eyebrow slightly, turned to the other. ‹You know how you're always expounding about the absurd coincidences in life, how you're not certain they're amusing or annoying?›

The paler woman turned to give her a look, exasperated. «Not _always_.» Charissa was slightly surprised it was the paler woman who was the natural Parselmouth. Especially since, considering exactly where they were right now, she had this odd suspicion this woman was...

‹You're going to love this one.› After a second of being glared at, the absurdly talented legilimens smirked a little, said, ‹I believe you said something about a human girl with the Blessing, yes?› Charissa really wasn't surprised she'd picked up on that, how much of her memories the woman had flipped through.

The Parselmouth blinked for a second, before turning to Charissa. «Correct me if I'm mistaken, but» 'Charissa Potter—' It wasn't pronounced very clearly, strangled by an unfamiliar accent, but Charissa could tell it was supposed to be her name. «—is a Speaker.»

For a moment, Charissa glanced between the two of them, wondering if this was really a good idea. She was pretty sure the Parselmouth was, oh what was her name again, whatever, the green one. Absolutely ancient immortal, incredibly famous, all that. She had no idea who the other was — the other one of the Ladies, maybe? Not that important, though. Mum _had_ specifically gone to the Ladies for help about the Blessing, so talking to them was probably fine. She could trust Mum's judgement on that. «I be Speaker, yes.»

The darker immortal let out a low groan, shaking her head to herself. ‹And nestspeech, of course. I've never really grown comfortable with nestspeech.›

'Ah,' «nestspeech?» Charissa didn't think she'd ever heard that word before.

The paler immortal waved a dismissive hand. «The secret tongue has a few different registers, used in different situations by different people. Children almost always start with one called nestspeech, a register also usually used by adults speaking to young children. People generally don't grow out of it until they have children of their own.»

Oh. Apparently, Charissa had been speaking in the Parseltongue equivalent of baby talk this whole time. She'd had no idea. «Not know that. So few Speakers.»

«Perhaps in your homeland, yes. We are significantly greater in number out here. But, in any case...» The woman gave her a smile, a slight tinge of ironic humour about the tilt of her lips. «I suppose it falls to me,» 'Charissa Potter,' «to welcome you to the club, so to speak.»

Charissa just blinked at her for a second. «Club?»

«We undying are a very small proportion of the overall human population, yes, but with how long we endure, how we tend to wander, how events tend to shape themselves around us, it is inevitable we will run into each other on occasion, even if we do not choose to. Long ago, we came into the habit of staying in regular contact with each other. Sometimes to render aid, but mostly just for social purposes.» The woman shrugged a little. «You'll find it won't take very long before your personal experience is so radically different from that of the people around you you have serious trouble identifying with them. It'll only be a couple centuries before you might find it difficult to think of yourself as human at all. We find it useful to associate with each other, keep each other grounded.»

Charissa barely managed to hold in a snort at that. To be completely honest, she already found it difficult to think of herself as human. Or, at least, the same kind of human as everyone else. It'd become very obvious recently that her personal experience was already radically different from most people's. But there was no real reason to explain all that, so she just nodded. «Yes, I follow. Any more?»

Smirking a bit, the darker immortal muttered, ‹I think she would rather be focusing on her little friend here than talking to us old ladies.›

«Well, we did interrupt them.»

‹Yes, how rude of us.›

«No, child. Nothing more. Just thought I would say hello.»

Oh, well, okay then. She did think the whole thing was a little weird, but okay. Though, come to think of it, she really hadn't introduced herself at all, had she? «How you called?»

The paler immortal blinked at her for a second, her darker companion again smirking with very clear amusement. «I never did say, did I? Well, I am not certain we share any language other than this one. In the secret tongue, people usually call me She-Who-Strikes, or Greeneyes.»

Charissa nodded. Apparently, that's just what names were like in Parseltongue — and here she'd thought that was just a weird thing the twins did. «Nightfire.»

Both women raised eyebrows at the name, but neither commented. Switching to heavily-accented French, the darker woman said, 'You have probably heard of me. My people have long called me their Lady of the Sacred Palace. But my name is Atemi.'

Oh. Charissa _had_ heard of her. She was one of the older immortals, one of a handful who, like Greeneyes here and the more familiar Queen of Nightmares, were known to be literally prehistoric. The Lady of the Sacred Palace was, in short, the patron immortal of the Belak, already an established figure in their earliest records, her primary residence in the modern day at the centre of their capital. According to semi-historical legend, a collaboration between her and Greeneyes a little over five thousand years ago resulted in the invention of Western runic magic in general — and, thus, most enchanting and warding — some further collaborations with Sumerian and Melīx mages over the following centuries developing a practical, empirical approach to spellcasting ancestral to modern arithmancy.

Charissa belatedly realised she was, right now, talking to the two women who had essentially invented magic as she knew it.

The rather odd thought made her finally remember her manners. Dipping into a little curtsey that was long automatic by now, Charissa said, 'Honoured to meet you, Mistress Atemi, Mistress' «Greeneyes.»

After a last quick back and forth exchange, both visibly amused, the immortals turned and walked off. Unfortunately, they really shouldn't leave the boys alone any longer, but it wasn't until a couple minutes later they could return to the courtyard themselves. Metsīv needed a few moments to recover.

The exasperated look Metsīv gave her when she'd admitted she'd never actually needed the toilet in the first place put an irrepressible smirk on her face.

* * *

 _July 10th, 1995_

* * *

Charissa held the foreign magic under the skin of her right hand, examining the interplay of energies with curious eyes.

She couldn't see it, not exactly. Not with her eyes, at least. When she reached out a hand to the temple's wardline, pulling her own power back, making herself empty, allowing outside magic to fill in the void, she could feel it pour into her. Thick and hot, swirling and chaotic as thundering winds, sharp and crackling as lightning. It tickled a bit, prickling at her skin. She could almost see it, sparks snapping blue and purple and green and yellow, but she somehow knew she wasn't _really_ seeing it. It was hard to explain.

Of course, she couldn't actually see the wardline either. Mum had had to tell her where it was. She could feel a static tingle walking across it — not as powerful as the one at Hogwarts, but noticeable — but she couldn't judge the location as precisely as Mum could. But, then, Mum had magesight, that wasn't a common skill.

Runic casting, when one got down to it, really wasn't that complicated. The trick was to draw ambient magic into oneself, which required a little meditation to figure out but wasn't complicated, taint it only slightly with one's own influence, then cast it back into the world, literally writing intent into reality. It wasn't difficult. It was easier than wandless magic, in fact — she didn't have to consciously shape the magic herself, whatever runes she used, however she formed her intent, would do that for her.

It was also more dangerous than wandless magic. Since it basically worked by shaping ambient magic, it was possible to inscribe a _permanent_ effect on the magic of wherever she happened to be. Enchanting the world, basically. Well, not quite permanent, since the inherent instability of ambient magic meant it would decay eventually, but far longer than an instantaneous spell, anyway. In fact, this was how most magical communities in the Americas did _all_ their warding, though they usually achieved the same effect through various forms of group ritual. The method was potentially deadly if done incorrectly — there were stories out there of warders, in experiments inspired by the Americans, accidentally blowing themselves up, sometimes killing dozens of people — which was why it had never caught on anywhere else, but when done competently it was quite literally _impossible_ to dispel or crack wards, the _magic of the land all around_ would resist the attackers. Technically, with each attempted to crack the wards, the expended power _increased_ the density of ambient magic in the area, making the wards _stronger_. (Negligibly, but still.) There were reasons the comparatively disorganised aboriginals had fared so well in that war a few centuries ago now — the ICW and their allies had needed to find ways to penetrate their wards without taking them down, directly and continuously circumventing their effects, which wasn't at all easy to figure out, could only even get it to work a fraction of the time.

Whoops, she'd let her mind wander. This energy in her hand was probably useless now, too tainted by her own wandering thoughts. She loosened her hold over the magic, letting it flow back into the world around her, but she didn't let her own power move in to replace it. She reached again for where she knew the wardline was, willed the power of the wards to flow into her, hot like fire and running like water and stinging like lightning.

Once she thought she had a fair measure, she turned back to the scorched, empty land to the west of the temple, blinking momentarily at the blinding tropical sun stabbing at her eyes. Focusing as tightly as she could — Severus's lessons in mind magic were actually very handy for this sort of thing — she slowly let the power held restrained in her hand leak back into the world, trailing behind her finger as she drew a single rune into the air, a Belẽs glyph used for a verb meaning to push, or to strike. The power, touched by her influence, came out mostly a shimmering white and an impenetrable black, slight flickers here and there tinged oranges and greens. Once she had the rune fully drawn, she drew up a tendril of her own magic, stabbed it into the floating shape — not enough power to fuel the spell, just to act as a catalyst, to entice the surrounding magic to follow as it led.

The rune collapsed with a flicker of white-yellow light, the bludgeoning hex flashing away, meeting the ground a few metres in front of her. Sand and rocks and blades of hardy little grasses were flung into the air, suspended in a plume for a moment before being scattered by the constant desert winds.

From just behind and to her side, Mum said, 'Yes, that was perfect this time. Keep practising with simple, single-rune spells on your own. Don't move on to anything more complicated until you feel you can almost do this in your sleep. And preferably not without me.'

Charissa managed to hold back a wince. Mum might not have been angry with her for practising wandless magic on her own, but she'd obviously come away with the impression she couldn't necessarily trust Charissa to listen to her all the time. Which, all right, fine, Charissa knew herself well enough to admit in her own head Mum was probably right — if she couldn't find a good reason she shouldn't refine her casting on her own, she was going to do it, whether or not Mum had asked her not to. She didn't think she could really be blamed for that so much. She had been allowed, and even encouraged, to practise magic on her own if she ever felt so inclined. She was moving on to more potentially dangerous stuff now, yes, but she didn't see why the same principle shouldn't apply. As long as she was careful...

But, well, it _hadn't_ made Mum angry, and she was still teaching her anyway. So she was trying not to worry about it. Sometimes she couldn't help it, though. The thought of disappointing her mother was just... It made her uncomfortable, that was all.

'Why does it come out that colour, anyway?' She'd always wondered about that. Mum's usually came out orangish, reddish, a bit of other colours sometimes, especially black or purple, varying somewhat based on context. Though, oddly, lately it seemed to have completely changed — Mum's demonstrations today had been mostly in blue and white, a bit of purple here and there. It'd always seemed a bit random to her.

She didn't need to look to know Mum was shrugging — that big white robe she always wore outside down here made enough noise shifting she could hear it. 'No idea. There are a lot of theories out there that it has something to do with the caster's personality, but exactly what people claim the various colours symbolise isn't consistent. And in many people it'll be entirely different spell to spell. In your case, that's just what it looks like. It doesn't necessarily mean anything.'

'Huh. I wonder what it would look like if Hermione tried it.' Charissa blinked at the odd shuddering she felt cross Mum's mind. Not that she could actually see _into_ Mum's mind — she was always entirely closed to her. She wasn't sure why Mum always blocked her out but, to be completely honest, it didn't really bother her, if Mum wanted to that was fine. But lately she'd realised that even blocked minds weren't _completely_ blocked. She couldn't get explicit thoughts or memories from people employing proper occlumency, of course, but she could get a very rough impression of activity, of emotion. She couldn't tell which emotion exactly, but she could generally tell whether someone was having one or not. Mum was definitely having an emotion.

She turned over her shoulder, peeking to Mum's face shaded by her hood. Mum wasn't the most expressive person in the world, even almost completely unreadable when she was trying to hide it, but Charissa thought she might look slightly wary. After a moment of hesitation, she said, 'As long as I have you out here alone—' Charissa almost laughed at that. The temple wards were ridiculously huge for some reason, they could barely even see the settlement from out here, nothing but sand and rock and scraggly little plants all around. '—you mind if I ask you a potentially uncomfortable question?'

For a second, Charissa considered pointing out Mum could ask her whatever she wanted whenever she wanted, Charissa was unlikely to care. But she just shrugged it off — Mum probably knew that, just saying this as one of those prompting things normal people did. 'Sure.'

'Are you and Metsīv...' Mum trailed off eyes tipping away, seemingly unsure how to finish that sentence.

Which was baffling, but okay. 'If you're asking if we've been having sex, yes. Was that what you wanted to ask?' Not sure why that was supposed to be an uncomfortable question.

'No, I mean—' Mum broke off, letting out a sharp sigh. She shifted in place a little bit, tiny plumes of dust raised by the movement of her feet, before shooting Charissa a little, sideways look. 'Is this the first time? That you've slept with someone who isn't Hermione while you've been with her, I mean.'

Charissa almost pointed out that Hermione was the _only_ person she slept with — well, excluding Perry this last week — but then realised at the last second she meant it idiomatically. 'Oh, no. Not even close.'

A look of slight surprise crossing her face, Mum just stared at her for a second. 'How many?'

'Er...' Charissa actually had to think about that one. She started counting off on her fingers. 'Tracey, Susan, Kelsey, Sorcha, Tugwood...erm, Lily, _sort of_ , complicated...Bell that one time... I think that's it. So, eight.'

Mum was silent a long moment, just blankly staring at her. 'Tugwood and Bell?'

'Ah, Clement Tugwood. I'm sure I've mentioned Bell before, she's captain of the duelling team.'

A slight smirk twitching at her lips, Mum said, 'I was mostly thinking it's odd you're shagging them and still referring to them by their last names.'

Charissa had no idea what to say to that, just shrugged. It wasn't like they were friends or anything. Especially in Tugwood's case. They barely even talked, really...

'Can I ask, why? I mean, I assume Hermione doesn't know.'

Oh. Well. Charissa considered for a moment, biting at her lip, arms only half-consciously folding over her stomach. She wasn't really sure how to explain this to someone else in a way that made sense. 'I don't know. At first, it was just because... Well, it was back when Hermione was still really...skittish. I was getting, you know, frustrated.'

 _Extremely_ frustrated. When Tracey had originally suggested it, she and Hermione had just been kissing. Quite a lot, yes, but nothing more than that. And...it'd been _so hard_ to stop herself from just... But she _couldn't_ , she'd _known_ Hermione wouldn't be comfortable with it, it was against the Rules. She'd needed to burn that off somehow, she would have gone completely crazy.

Of course, now she and Hermione actually _were_ having sex, but she was still shagging other people. And, to be completely honest, she _did_ know exactly why. It was just... 'I don't want to...' She bit her lip for another second, frowning down at the sand. She had the feeling Mum really didn't want to know this. 'I can't— There are things I can do with other people I can't with Hermione. It's different.'

And Mum was giving her a _very_ strange look. Charissa wasn't sure how to read it. Wary? Confused? Concerned? 'What kind of things?'

Charissa just stared at her for a second. She really didn't think Mum wanted to know that. But she didn't retract the question, so Charissa just shrugged the thought off. 'It varies. Different people are comfortable with different things. Metsīv, just for an example, she lets me strangle her.'

Face twisting into an odd look of hesitant disbelief, Mum said, 'Really?'

She nodded. 'She'll even move my hands or arm to her throat if I don't do it myself.' For just a moment, Charissa was distracted by a memory. Metsīv writhing under her, struggling that wasn't _actual_ struggling, hot, and tense, and tight, and _desperate_... Charissa shivered at the remembered thrill running through her, her fingers twitching with it, before consciously shoving the memory aside, focusing on the present moment. Not really something she should probably be dwelling on when she's supposed to be talking to her mother. 'But, yeah. I do worse to Tugwood, actually. You don't want to know the details, but I've been getting a lot of practice with my healing charms lately, leave it at that. And with the others I...not as much as those two, but I am rougher with them than I'd ever be with Hermione.'

'And you're sure they...' Not even looking close to her direction now, Mum paused for a moment to clear her throat, shifting in place a little again. 'You're sure they're okay with it? That they're comfortable, ah...'

Charissa rolled her eyes. 'Mum, I'm a legilimens. I know instantly when someone isn't enjoying themselves. If they don't want it, I'll know.' To be completely honest about her own moral character for a second here, she wasn't positive seeing some aversion or disgust or anger or whatever in someone's head would be enough to get her to stop. She probably would if they explicitly asked her to, though. Probably. In any case, hadn't been a problem yet.

Which was quite baffling, really, she wouldn't even consider for an _instant_ making herself as vulnerable to someone else as Metsīv and Tugwood seemed to willingly do with her. The first time might have been her initiative in both cases, yes, but they both quite nearly begged her to hurt them now. It was weird.

Not that she was complaining, mind. She just didn't understand it.

'And you can't do it with Hermione, because...'

Charissa shrugged. 'She'd never agree to it.'

'You haven't asked?'

'I don't need to ask. I know she wouldn't be comfortable with that sort of thing.' Well, to be entirely honest, with what she knew of both Hermione's personality and what tended to get her off, she could probably see Hermione in her role. Nothing like what she did to Tugwood or Metsīv, but just a little bit of verbal or even physical forcefulness, sure, she could see Hermione doing that. Hermione liked being in charge, that much was obvious — it was possible she had never yet considered applying that same mindset to sex, perhaps because Charissa being the way she was didn't give her a lot of opportunity, but that didn't change her natural inclinations. She suspected Hermione would be just as uncomfortable as she would be being on the receiving end, though.

Of course, Charissa had figured this out a while ago. Which was sort of ironic. It was a way she and Hermione were actually similar, but still ended up being one of the reasons... Well. She'd once thought she and Hermione were very similar people. She'd learned by now they weren't. Not even a little bit. They'd had similar priorities at the time, and mostly still did now, which had given the _illusion_ of their motivations, their personalities being similar. But, the internal logic that led to Hermione not really caring about the shite normal people obsessed over was simply different than the logic that had brought Charissa to the same place. They weren't as similar as she'd once thought. They weren't as compatible as she'd once thought, even a few short months ago. But the real problem at this point was that, seemingly, Hermione still didn't...

'I'm going to hurt her.'

'What do you mean?'

Charissa glanced over to Mum again, taking in the cautious, almost fearful air about her, half-hidden in the shade of her hood. She understood what Mum was worrying about, she wasn't an idiot. She knew Mum almost constantly worried Charissa was going to, she didn't know. Suddenly turn into a violent crazy person, whatever. This whole topic of conversation probably wasn't making her worry less, but, well, that was Mum's own fault, Charissa hadn't been the one to bring it up. 'Hermione doesn't know what I am. She still thinks I'm...' Charissa stared out over the glaring sands for just a second, shrugged. 'I don't know. Nice? Not the right word. But, I can't hide it forever. She'll find out eventually. And when she does, I'm going to hurt her.'

'And that bothers you?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

Charissa blinked, turned to give Mum a look again. That wasn't a question she'd expected. If she understood correctly, Mum was just trying to figure out what was going on in her head, at least partially hoping she wouldn't have to worry so much. She knew that was what Mum was doing a lot of the time when she asked her personal things, trying to reassure herself. Which was fine, Charissa didn't mind. 'Ah, I don't know, really. I just...'

Letting out a long sigh, Charissa rubbed at her face for a moment. She knew what she would say if she weren't aware of how normal people felt about things. She _would_ say hurting Hermione would make her feel guilty, but she knew she wouldn't. By now, she'd seen in other people's heads what it felt like and, to be honest, she wasn't entirely sure she was capable of feeling legitimate guilt. She'd done things before she knew logically were wrong, things she shouldn't have done, so she realised she'd broken some rule, she'd failed somehow, and she'd felt bad about that. But that was more of a self-directed fury with her own failure than anything else, maybe a bit of self-consciousness since other people had witnessed it. That's what she would have called guilt before, but they weren't really the same thing. And, sure, hurting Hermione would also be a kind of failure, but that wasn't really...

'She's mine.' She felt Mum's eyes on her, so she shrugged a little. 'I don't know. I just... She's important, is all. I value her happiness for no other reason than she's important to me. I couldn't really explain why. And I know I'm going to hurt her, she's going to be miserable because of me. I don't like it.

'But at the same time...' An ironic smirk pulling at her lips, she turned to face Mum again, her voice thick with dark humour. '...I don't do anything about it. It would have been better for Hermione if I stopped this relationship thing when I first started realising there was a serious problem, months ago now. But I didn't. Tried to convince myself I was imagining it, more recently, once I was sure, just ignoring it. I value her happiness, yes, just not more than I do my own, I guess. But the thought still makes me uncomfortable.'

'Well.' For long seconds Mom just stood there, her eyes closed against the harsh desert sun, arms crossed loosely over her stomach. Her face was smooth and relaxed, no real expression Charissa could make out, and with her mind blanked as it always was, she really had no clue what was going on in there.

When had not being able to read someone's mind become annoying? She really had gotten used to this legilimency thing quickly...

Finally Mum sighed, opened her eyes to meet Charissa's, shooting her a crooked, sad sort of smile. 'Don't really think I can help you with that one.'

'Didn't think you could,' Charissa said, shrugging. 'My own little mess I got myself into. I'm only saying, I don't think I can hide it from her very much longer. She keeps expecting me to do or say things, I don't even know what exactly, I just know I'm doing it wrong. She's smart, she'll figure out there's something wrong with me. I guess, things are going to get really awkward soon. Just a warning.'

Eyebrows lowering into a little frown, Mum said, 'I wish you wouldn't say that.'

'Say what?'

'That there's something wrong with you. The way you are isn't _wrong_. It's just different.'

Charissa didn't bother hiding a smirk, shaking her head to herself. 'I know what you're saying, Mum, but that's not what's going on. To be honest, I don't think I _can_ feel bad about being, I don't know, defective. The way you're assuming I am, I mean, why you said that. It doesn't really bother me.'

Now Mum looked less annoyed, less concerned, and just confused. 'I'm not getting this from nowhere, you know. You've said before the thought that there was something wrong with you bothered you. A lot. You actually came to me about it more than once.'

'Well, yeah.' For a second, Charissa could do no more than blink at her. Wasn't that obvious? 'Of course, I was _supposed_ to be a good, normal person. That it was becoming increasingly clear that I'm _not_ a good, normal person meant that I was failing, and I don't like failing. But now that it's clear that being a good, normal person isn't the goal, being the way I am doesn't mean I'm failing at anything. It's fine.

'But, you know,' she said, giving Mum another smirk, 'what else would you call it? People aren't supposed to be the way I am. There _is_ something wrong with me. Any way you choose to dress it up with idioms or pretty platitudes is simply avoiding stating fact explicitly. Tact, I suppose. And I know you might not like hearing me say there's something wrong with me, calling myself defective, so I can avoid saying it if you want. But you only feel that way because there _isn't_ anything wrong with you. It doesn't bother me.'

Mum sighed. 'All right, I get it. Just, try not to be too annoyed with my mum moments. It's reflex.'

With a snort of laughter and a shake of her head, Charissa reached for the wardline again, moving straight back into practising runic casting.

* * *

 _July 15th, 1995_

* * *

Once Charissa's breathing was back under control, once she thought she could actually focus well enough to cast even basic spells, she whipped out her wand with an easy flick.

She gave Metsīv's body a quick once-over, but she had gone comparatively easy on her. There were only a couple scratches along her hips, the small of her back — very shallow, Metsīv didn't like it when she drew blood — all smoothed out with a couple quick sweeps of her wand. Metsīv, once again, barely reacted. Not that Charissa really understood what was going on in these moments. It did happen sometimes, in the few minutes afterward, Metsīv's mind oddly fuzzy and blank, seeming to be...detached, floating half-away. It was the weirdest thing. It didn't seem to be harmful, though, so Charissa just ignored it, used the few moments of stillness to do her healing.

Which did involve one comparatively difficult bit. Healing bruises wasn't that bad, but easing trauma so they never formed in the first place, well, that was somewhat more complicated. The angle was somewhat awkward with Metsīv laying face-down, but it was fine, she brushed some of her hair out of her way, lifted her chin a little — Metsīv again barely reacted, eyes still closed, her breath hitching only a little bit. Weird.

Once again, Charissa hesitated, her finger trailing over the somewhat reddened curve of Metsīv's neck. She couldn't say why, really. Well, okay, she probably _shouldn't_ say why, but she did know exactly what was going on in her head. The thought of, just, _not_ healing Metsīv, letting the bruise form, have her walk around with it the next couple days was... It was an oddly pleasant thought. She couldn't explain exactly how. It just was.

But she composed herself after a moment, the lengthy Latin incantation spilling over his lips. No real point in having odd, possessive thoughts like that. She would be going back to Britain tomorrow as it was. Her healing done, she sat up leaning against the wall, settling in to wait for Metsīv to return to reality.

She belatedly noted they never had made it to the bed. It was still a few metres that way, Metsīv laid out half across the dark rug Charissa was also sitting on and half on the cold tile of the floor, their clothes cast off in a jumbled mess around them. Whoops.

For some moments she sat there waiting — she wasn't sure how long, she spent most of it drawing ambient magic into her fingers over and over, practising absolute basic runic casting. Eventually, Metsīv moved, sliding a bit against the floor, tipping over Charissa's thigh, arms wrapping around her back and head settling in her lap. Charissa tried not to be too obviously annoyed. Metsīv couldn't see her expression right now anyway, face pressed against Charissa's hip, so she guessed it didn't matter, just reflex. Everyone always seemed to want to do this kind of thing. She was well aware she was the odd one here but, to be completely honest, the people she was comfortable with, just, holding her were very few. And even with them, she almost never got the still, soothing warmth she could see flowing across Metsīv's mind. Most of the time, it just made her faintly unsettled, little anxious tingles twitching across her skin, an almost irrepressible urge to _move_ , to shift away. She didn't like it.

But she was growing increasingly accustomed to tolerating it by now — it didn't really bother her _that_ much, and it tended to lead to fewer confusing arguments — so she didn't do anything about it. She just glanced down at Metsīv, threaded the fingers of the hand she wasn't idly playing with through her sweat-streaked hair, and just let her lie there.

Sometimes, she found it a bit darkly amusing that, even with the ability to know every single thing that went through people's minds, she _still_ didn't understand normal people most of the time.

It took a couple minutes for Metsīv to speak. Charissa saw the question coming long before she actually got it out, but she let Metsīv get to it at her own pace. People seemed to be more comfortable if she did that, so it was just easier to, no matter how frustratingly hesitant people could be. But then the question she asked was somehow not the one Charissa had seen coming. 'Were you staying tonight?'

Ah, delaying the serious conversation, then. All right. Charissa considered her answer for a moment. They were leaving tomorrow morning, yes, but not until rather late, so it shouldn't make a difference. Mum had said about a week ago now that if she wanted to spend a few nights with Metsīv that was fine, it didn't bother her. Which was partially a lie — the thought had obviously made Mum a bit uncomfortable, she'd been so awkward she hadn't been able to meet Charissa's eyes, but she _had_ said it, and she wouldn't have said it if she actually had a problem with Charissa doing it.

Charissa had only done it twice over that week, true. She didn't generally like sleeping with anyone besides Hermione. Everyone tended to get a little clingy. She was fine with that if it was Hermione — she _was_ comfortable, after all — but most everyone else it bothered her. The handful of times she'd had opportunity to do it she'd ended up resorting to sleeping charms.

So, she sat there for a few seconds, weighing how uncomfortable she'd probably be against the likelihood of having sex again tonight or after waking in the morning. Eh, fine, it was her last night here. 'Sure, I can do that.'

Metsīv hummed against her hip, shifting in place slightly. Then she groaned, her arms tightening around Charissa's waist. 'We should probably move to the bed.'

'Hmm, probably. Your fault we didn't make it, you know.'

Her mind twitching with a combination of confusion and amusement, Metsīv turned her head a bit to look up at Charissa out of the corner of her eye. Her hair shifting against her, considering where exactly Metsīv's head was at the moment, was _very_ distracting, but Charissa did her best to ignore it. 'How exactly is that _my_ fault?'

Charissa smirked. With a gentle touch, she reached into Metsīv's mind, waded through her memories a moment before finding the one she was thinking of, in this very room, not long ago. It was slightly weird looking at it from Metsīv's perspective, but she found it easily enough.

Felt Metsīv dip her chin somewhat, eyes a little narrowed, looking at Charissa through her lashes, lips quirked slightly to the side. Exactly what someone was thinking during a memory was usually indistinct, not recorded as clearly as events, but this was recent enough most of it was still there. Metsīv almost vibrating with an eager thrill, her heart high in her throat. Consumed with agonising anticipation, she wanted Charissa so badly, she _needed_ her, desperately enough it was honestly a little terrifying, she didn't understand herself lately, and it was extremely difficult to care. But she tried her best to keep herself externally composed, to not give away too much of what she was feeling, to retain at least _some_ tattered shreds of her dignity. The way Charissa just gave her a thin, teasing smirk, just the simple look enough to turn her knees weak, in an instant embarrassingly unsteady on her feet, was not _at all_ helping.

Charissa held the memory for a few seconds, fingers slipping through Metsīv's hair, spoke with a low chuckle on her voice. 'When you look at me like that, well, I don't think I can be held responsible for my actions.' Metsīv didn't respond, just buried her face more firmly into Charissa's waist. When Charissa released her mind, letting her turn away from the memory, her thoughts were touched with not insignificant hints of embarrassment, yes, but also a pleasant sort of self-satisfaction, a tingling, almost childishly energetic warmth, as though she were an instant away from jumping up to her feet and dancing around like the silliest person in existence, and Charissa didn't have to be able to see her face to know Metsīv was grinning into her hip.

She shook her head, smiling to herself a little. Metsīv was just so adorable sometimes.

Stillness fell over Metsīv again, silence stretching for long moments. Not that Metsīv's mind was actually still and silent, Charissa could tell she was working herself up to the topic of conversation she'd quite consciously avoided just a few seconds ago. She was taking long enough Charissa had the opportunity to have a thought. Originally, she'd been intending to give the expected platitudes, but. Maybe this conversation could be more useful than that.

She knew she was going to hurt Hermione. That was inevitable. But, while she did know it was going to happen, she wasn't entirely sure how Hermione would react to it. Well, saying she "wasn't entirely sure" was giving herself too much credit, she had no fucking clue. It was too far outside her experience. But she didn't like having no fucking clue. It was leaving far too much to chance. She'd like to have at least _some_ idea how Hermione would react, at least _some_ idea of how that conversation might go, how she'd need to handle herself. _Something_.

So. She wouldn't lie, then. All right. She could do that. Perhaps she should even be intentionally more cruel than was truly reflective of her feelings (or lack thereof). Metsīv hadn't known her nearly as long as Hermione had, of course, she couldn't expect her to react similarly at all. Being somewhat harsher might make her response more predictive. She could do that.

All right, then.

Finally, after long moments of dithering, Metsīv said, 'Charissa?'

'Yes?'

Metsīv was silent a short moment, fingers absently trailing across Charissa's lower back. Fuck, that was distracting... 'You're leaving tomorrow, right.' Wasn't a question.

With some not insignificant force of effort, Charissa yanked herself away from Metsīv's fingers soft against her back, ignored the pleasant tingling and nascent heat already rising. 'Ah, yes.'

'When will I see you again?' Charissa didn't have to be a legilimens to feel the almost painful vulnerability on her voice, but she did see even more in her head. Metsīv had no idea what was wrong with her. She hadn't really known Charissa all that long, and they'd already been... And she didn't know why she felt the way she did, it made absolutely no sense. Something to do with Charissa being as powerful as she was, her magic messing with her head? No idea. But whatever the reason, she didn't want Charissa to leave, she didn't want her to disappear forever, she didn't want this to be the end. She didn't want to lose her already, she'd only just found her. The thought was just...depressing.

Hmm. Yes, this was going to be uncomfortable. Oh well. 'To be honest, I wasn't planning on ever seeing you again.' Which was true. She certainly wouldn't have been opposed if they ended up meeting again, yes, but she hadn't been planning to go out of her way to make it happen. She just didn't care that much.

Metsīv flinched at the simple statement, more internally than externally, her thoughts reeling in incipient agony from the simple words. Charissa found herself shaking her head — she really couldn't fathom how people could make themselves this vulnerable. Confusion thick in her thoughts and her voice, Metsīv muttered, 'Did I...I...' Do something wrong, she meant.

Which was sort of ridiculous. What could Metsīv have possibly done wrong? She didn't get it. But not the point, whatever. Putting a slight hint of derision on her own voice, Charissa said, 'Mītsavī,' very consciously using Metsīv's actual name, which she almost never did, 'what did you think this was?'

'I...' Metsīv pulled away from her, leaning back to perch on her ankles, quite obviously avoiding Charissa's eyes. She ran a hand through her short hair, shaking her head to herself. 'I thought you, I don't know...' Legitimately liked her, she meant.

Which Charissa did, she supposed — she wouldn't have bothered sitting through as many actual conversation as they'd had if she didn't. Not to say Metsīv was all _that_ interesting. She was too...timid? Too simple. An ordinary person, who would probably have an ordinary life after Charissa left. No drive to leave her mark on the world around her, no drive to accomplish much of anything, hardly even any motivation to improve herself. She was okay, she guessed, but there were plenty of other people Charissa would rather talk to.

Mostly, she was just beautiful. No kidding on that one, just her sitting there was far too distracting, dark skin smooth and unbroken and extremely fucking enticing, it was taking some considerable effort on her part to focus on what was going on, not let her thoughts wander. For Charissa's purposes, that was more than enough. That was definitely not what Metsīv wanted to hear, though.

Which was exactly why that was what Charissa was going to tell her. 'Come now, Mītsavī.' She flinched at Charissa's repeated use of her real name. 'I have told you already. You're _very_ beautiful, you know that. Why can't that be all this was?'

Metsīv crossed her arms over her chest, her face pulled into an indistinct frown, her mind chaotically writhing and throbbing, almost enough to make Charissa nauseous. 'You mean...all this, it was just...'

'Sex? Yes.'

And then something happened Charissa had not anticipated at all. She'd expected Metsīv to be hurt, yes, but she'd expected that to make her angry. She'd expected her to yell at her, probably insult her, possibly try to hurt her. Something like that. Charissa knew, the very few times someone had successfully offended her, she'd gotten bloody _furious_.

Instead, her thoughts turning black and oddly sticky, she couldn't explain it, Metsīv visibly curled away, breath harsh and tears slipping down the brown curves of her cheeks, and started to cry.

She... Oh, _ð'Vurgen w Frygēniaðis_ , this was just... She hadn't meant to...

 _Fuck_ , this was uncomfortable. She never knew what to do with crying people.

'I don't... I'm sorry, Metsīv, I didn't mean it, I just...' Except, she _had_ meant it, really. Just, she wouldn't normally have said it. 'I didn't... I'm sorry, I don't...' Yeah, she really had no fucking clue what she was doing here. How do people deal with crying? Seriously...

Metsīv had obviously heard her. That black mess was still in her head, but some confusion was mixing into it, it was clear enough for Charissa to tell she was trying to get control of herself. It did take some moments, but Charissa just waited, staring at the walls, trying not to be too uncomfortable. Should she be doing something? Eventually Metsīv could actually talk. Not very well, thick and stuttering — the accent she had speaking French in the first place really didn't help — but Charissa picked up the meaning easily enough. Perhaps cheating slightly, since she _could_ see what Metsīv meant to say in her head anyway. 'Then...w-why did you...if you didn't mean it?'

'I...' Ah, shite, this was complicated. She rubbed at her face for a moment, trying to decide how truthful she should be. Eh, what could it hurt, she probably wasn't going to see Metsīv ever again anyway. 'You know how I have a girlfriend back in Britain, right.'

Metsīv cringed a little, but nodded. 'You've mentioned her. Maïa.'

Oh, Metsīv actually remembered Hermione's name. Somewhat surprised by that, she couldn't have said it more than a few times. 'You see, I'm not a normal person. She doesn't realise that. When she does, it's going to hurt her. I have no idea what that'll look like, what'll happen, and that's not really...a good way to be doing things.'

She'd hesitated for a second there, distracted by the sharp sense of shock and disbelief rolling through Metsīv's mind. The older girl stared at her for a long moment, drowned eyes blinking, mouth opening and closing silently. Finally, 'So, you were being cruel to me _on purpose_ , as _practice_ for dealing with your real girlfriend later?'

'I... Well, yes, I suppose that's one way to put it.'

A twisted, sick sort of look on her face Charissa couldn't read, Metsīv screamed, suddenly shockingly loud, 'Who _does_ that?!'

Charissa shrugged. 'Well, I do. I'm not a normal person, Metsīv. That's the problem.'

'Yeah,' Metsīv said, voice thick with dark laughter, 'no kidding.' She paused a moment, rubbing at her face with both hands. Then she dropped them, shooting Charissa a watery glare, her blotchy, reddened face and drowned eyes so far from intimidating it was funny, to be honest. Probably best not to show that, though. 'You weren't lying, though.'

'Huh?'

'You said you didn't mean it. But you _did_ mean it.'

'Yes.' At the mixed look of fury and despair on Metsīv's face, the matching tumult in her head, Charissa just gave her a helpless shrug. 'It's not like I consciously chose to be a heartless bitch or anything, Metsīv. I didn't choose not to care on purpose. I'm not doing this out of malice. It's just the way I am. I am simply incapable of feeling for you the way you want me to. If you can't handle that...well, then, we never would have worked long-term anyway.'

'I...' Metsīv shook her head, her face falling into her hands. She was silent a long moment, just thickly breathing, occasionally rubbing at her forehead. Even Charissa's window into her head was essentially useless, too dark and chaotic and confused. Eventually, after a short while, Metsīv pushed herself to her feet, walked a little away, arms crossed over her stomach and back to Charissa. 'Leave. I, I can't look at you right now, just go.'

'All right.' Charissa popped to standing, summoned her clothes to herself with a wave of wandless fingers. She didn't bother getting dressed, though — it was rather late, she was going straight to bed anyway. Instead she flicked out her wand, cast a glamour over herself, an illusion of presentableness, followed by a subtle notice-me-not to stop anyone she might run into from paying too much attention, prevent them from noticing. A last quick glance around the room confirmed she wasn't leaving anything behind. 'Goodbye, Mītsavī.'

She was already out in the hall, the door half-closed behind her, when she heard a muttered, 'Goodbye, Charissa.'

Once she was alone, Charissa let out a long sigh, eyes closed and face tipped up to the ceiling. But only for a second, immediately turning off in the direction of Mum's flat. That could have gone better.

Which _really_ didn't bode well for the Hermione situation. That was not going to be fun. To be honest, it would probably be best to just...get it out of the way. The longer she drew it out, the worse it was going to be. She wasn't an idiot, she knew that. But...she didn't want to. She knew it would be best, for both Hermione and herself, but...

Well. Hermione _was_ comfortable.

* * *

Keshic — _Exonym for the Nubian-speakers of the country just to the south of Egypt. They call themselves Nōbī, the term used in Britain is from the Kemetic term Keši._

ti-Nīv-etès-Wōt (IPA: /tˤə.'ni:β 'æ.tˤəs wo:t/, roughly "tuh **neev** **ah** -tuhs **woht** ") — _Playing around with Coptic again, but I'm pretty sure I got it...mostly right? They are talking about the woman who was once worshipped by the ancient Egyptians as Wadjet, yes. Literally means something like "the green lady" — that is what Egyptian_ wȝḏyt _, where the Egyptological "Wadjet" comes from, means. (It actually would have been pronounced more like_ /uʁ.t͡ʃˤa.jɪt/ _, roughly "oogh-ch_ _ah-yit".)_ _And yes, in my headcanon she is both a metamorphmaga and a Parselmouth, hence the cobra imagery, that's an actual thing._

Two Ladies — _Have I explained this already? Oh well. Translation of an epithet for the goddesses Egyptologists call Wadjet and Nekhbet. Were considered the patron guardians of Egypt for quite literally all of ancient history._

Metsīv — _Pronounced roughly "mut-_ _ **sieve**_ " _(IPA:_ /mətˤ.'si:β/ _). Just a Coptic word, basically meaning craftiness, or trickiness._

Mītsavī — _Pronounced roughly "_ _ **meet**_ _-suh-_ _ **vee**_ " _(IPA:_ /,mitˤ.sə̥.'βi:/ _). Just another Coptic word, translating to wisdom. Fun random fact of the day, I'm pretty sure both these words share a root with the ancient goddess Egyptologists refer to as Ma'at (_ _mˤ3t) — the basic root in the modern language without any grammatical silliness or compounding going on would be "me" (_ /mæ/ _, pronounced much like "mat" without the t at the end)_ _, meaning truth or justice_ _._

ti-Wàha — _Pronounced roughly "tuh_ _ **wah**_ _-huh" (IPA:_ /tˤə.'wa.ħə/ _), literally meaning "the oasis". Considering where exactly they are right now (just a bit south of Herakleopolis), when someone says that they almost always mean the Faiyum Oasis._

[There wouldn't happen to be a toilet around?] — _Rather indiscreet she's being, I know, but she is speaking French right now, and if I understand correctly that wouldn't seem strange. Don't speak French though, so I'm not positive. And yes, I actually did consider that..._

Uxesic — _In-universe term for a stage in the development of the Egyptian language from roughly three to four thousand years ago, named for the capital of the kingdom being in Thebes (_ wȝs.t _, eventually Coptic_ Ūxe _, roughly "_ _ **oo**_ _-huh") for most of the period. Much like my use of Menfenic in an earlier chapter, this is my invention, not a real thing. I couldn't even find a name for the city in Coptic, had to make it up._

[ð'Vurgen w Frygēniaðis] — _Roughly "th-_ _ **vur**_ _-ghen uh frih-ghay-_ _ **nya**_ _-this" (IPA:_ /ðβ̃ʊr̪.ɟɛ̃n ə fɾə.,ɟø̃.'ɲʲæ.ðɪs/ _). "Murgen", as previously mentioned, is a Brīþwn adaptation of Muirgen, and "Bry_ _gēniaðis" literally means Night Queen ("brigēnys" for queen, "aðis" for night)._

* * *

 _Yes, I know I'm late. Many distractions. I would say I'm sorry about that but, well. Compared to when I originally committed to updating once a week, my chapters were only, what, four to eight thousand words or so. Now a **normal** chapter is two to three times that length. And look at the length of this chapter! Even though I've missed an update, compared to when I started weekly updates, my output has **still** **increased**._

 _I'm still going to do my best to keep up with weekly updates, of course. (Every other week, since this one alternates with TRW.) I just don't feel like lying and saying I'm sorry about it when I'm really not. Might make me a bit of a bitch, I guess, but. Oh well._

 _Thanks for putting up with me,  
~Wings_


	34. Summer, 1995

_Is this an update actually **on time**? Blasphemy._

* * *

 _July 25th, 1995_

* * *

Arms crossed over her chest, foot tapping at the floor, Hermione tried not to be too impatient. She couldn't help it though! The lines for everything were _so long_. You'd think, with magic and all, mages would be able to do this sort of thing far more efficiently, but no! She was starting to sort of regretting agreeing to come...

Because of the duelling competition attached to the Tournament at Hogwarts, the student tournament the ICW put on twice a year had been delayed about a month. Charissa and Neville had been accepted into the Hogwarts team rather late in the year, so they were both in it. Charissa had asked if she wanted to come with, to spend the week in Sicily — the tournament this year was being hosted by a magical settlement associated with Syracuse. She'd had to debate with herself for a little while. Yes, she was interested in seeing more of the magical world, especially outside of Britain, but she didn't like duelling _nearly_ as much as Charissa did, and watching her fight was sometimes terrifying and often unnerving. In the end she'd decided it was worth it, if only to check out Syracuse itself. Sicily had been a major centre of civilisation for millennia, after all, home to a constantly shifting mix of various mediterranean cultures. It was fascinating.

But the actual ICW events were rather aggravating. It was time for lunch at the moment, so she and Lily had gone off together — Lily was avoiding James, and Hermione was avoiding Charissa's uncle Sirius, so it was convenient. They were in a big open-air foodcourt at the moment, the place absolutely _packed_ with various people from all over magical Europe, Hermione's head was hurting from all the noise, standing in the line leading up to one of the stands. And they'd been standing here _forever!_ It was taking so long! Hermione really wasn't that interested in the tournament part of this trip and the first place, and nonsense like this was only making it more annoying.

The universe was kind enough to provide her with something to distract herself from her frustration. Though she wasn't sure she should really be grateful.

It was the most absurd thing ever, absolutely no warning at all. She and Lily were waiting in line. Since this entire setup the ICW had was sort of haphazard, not what the location was designed for, there was a spot foot traffic had to slip through the line. Which was annoying, but okay. They had just passed that spot, people slowly trickling around behind them. And suddenly, out of nowhere, very close behind her, voice loud and thick with shock, came a call of, ' _Maïa?!'_

Hermione jumped at the voice shouting her name, turned to look over her shoulder. And distantly felt her mouth drop open. It took a few seconds to find her voice. But even then, she could only say, ' _Aimée?!'_

It... That was Aimée, wasn't it? The girl definitely _looked_ like Aimée. Or, mostly. The soft, rounded face, the bright blue eyes, the short, messy brown hair. She definitely _looked_ like Hermione's now thirteen-year-old cousin. The problem with that was, of course. Hermione was a muggleborn. _All her cousins were muggles_. What the hell was her _muggle cousin_ doing at an _ICW event?_

Even as surprised as she was, her head too jittery to really think too clearly, she still knew what the obvious answer was: Aimée _wasn't_ a muggle, that was the only thing that made sense. And since she was wearing brightly-coloured trousers and vest of clear magical manufacture, yes, that was the reasonable conclusion. But... But how did...

'Wait, wait...' The shocked look on Aimée's face was rapidly falling away, replaced with increasing glee. 'You're a sorceress, aren't you?'

Hermione just blinked at the word for a second, before belatedly reminding herself they were speaking French right now. Their word for "witch" was _sorciѐre_ — they used something else for the concept the British used the same word for, Hermione hadn't actually picked up on what yet. 'Erm, yeah. You are too, then?'

Face now dominated by an eager grin, Aimée gave a couple energetic nods.

Hermione barely stopped herself from burying her face in her hands. This was _ridiculous_.

Apparently, Lily didn't quite agree. Standing at her shoulder, with a tone of somewhat reluctant amusement, Lily said, 'This is hilarious.'

Hermione could only glare at her.

In the end, despite how long they'd been waiting in that damn line, they never got to the front — Aimée grabbed Hermione by the wrist and started dragging her off, Lily following shortly behind, looking far too entertained with the whole situation. After a bit of pushing their way through the crowd, Aimée's characteristic babbling absent due to the deafening noise, Hermione realised they were going to this place just off the courtyard, inside, where she'd noticed there were a few more permanent sit-down restaurants. They hadn't even bothered trying to go to one of those, she could only imagine the wait for a table was insane. Whoever Aimée was here with must have far more patience than she did.

They were wending their way between tables packed with chattering mages, Aimée still relentlessly pulling her onward, when Hermione suddenly jerked to a stop. Or, at least, she did for a second, Aimée didn't slow down at all, forcing her to stumble into motion again. Because she recognised the two women instantly, had known them all her life. But it still came as far too much of a shock.

It had never even occurred to her her grand-maman and her tantine might be mages. Clearly, the universe was fucking with her.

Though... As Aimée dragged her up to the table, Hermione took a closer look, glancing between her grandma Athénaïs and aunt Sébastienne. She thought Tienne was _definitely_ a witch — she was wearing a variation of the somewhat lighter robes common to the Continent, the dark leather of what was probably a wand holster visible under her right sleeve. Her grand-maman, though, was dressed the same as always, and more importantly... Well, she looked too old. She was in her sixties now, and she actually looked it, age lines obvious in her face and hands, hair noticeably greying. That wasn't what a witch in her sixties looked like. So she was probably a muggle, or possibly a squib.

This whole situation was still absurd, of course. Hermione had known already muggleborns virtually always had magic _somewhere_ in the family. Lily, she knew, had a squib grandmother, and a fair number of magical cousins out there somewhere — including Luna, of all people, crazy coincidence. It wasn't entirely unexpected Hermione might have magical relatives somewhere. In fact, she'd half-expected to find out about someone at some point.

She _hadn't_ expected them to be _close_ family she'd known her _entire life_.

This was ridiculous.

Dragging her up to the table, still practically bouncing with excitement, Aimée said, 'Look! Look who I found!'

Grand-maman hardly reacted, just shaking her head to herself a little, but Tienne let out a long, clearly aggravated sigh. 'Aimée, did you go drag off another—' She broke off in mid-sentence, staring up at Hermione with almost comically wide eyes. 'Maïa? What...'

That got Grand-maman to look up. She just stared at Hermione for long moments, slowly blinking. Finally, a faint expression of annoyance on her face, she said, 'Well, of course you're magic. That would fit the pattern, wouldn't it.'

Hermione was too dazed at the moment to have a proper reaction. But she still asked, 'I'm sorry, the pattern?'

'The world messing with me.'

Ah. Well. Hermione couldn't disagree with the sentiment, exactly.

From somewhat behind her, Lily said, 'It is sort of funny how this sort of thing works out sometimes, isn't it?'

Grand-maman turned a narrow frown on her, said in a low, sharp voice, 'Can we help you?' Hermione had to choke back a shocked chuckle. She probably didn't realise who she was talking to, yes, didn't know this was one of the most powerful mages in the whole of bloody Europe right here. But Grand-maman was almost certainly non-magical, and she had to know Lily was. She didn't know why, that she'd still talk like that amused her. Hermione guessed, knowledge of magic or no, Grand-maman was still Grand-maman.

By the way Tienne turned to Lily as she spoke, and then quite abruptly paled, at least she recognised her. Which Hermione wasn't particularly surprised by — she knew Lily was rather famous, even moreso on the Continent than in Britain, funnily enough. Hand somewhat shakingly moving to take Grand-maman's sleeve over her elbow, Tienne stuttered out, 'Ah, I, Mother, I think that's L-Lily Evans.' Hermione blinked at the name; she knew Lily would prefer people use her maiden name these days, but knew nobody did. At least not in Britain, apparently. Weird.

It was obvious that, even if Grand-maman and Aimée didn't recognise her face, they _definitely_ recognised her name. Not that Grand-maman looked apologetic for her previous rudeness, no, she just looked slightly surprised and curious. Aimée, on the other hand, looked half star-struck, staring at Lily with a wide-eyed expression that looked unsettlingly like worshipful awe. After a short pause, Grand-maman said, 'If you don't mind my asking, what exactly are you doing with our Maïa?'

Lily gave an easy shrug. 'Emma wasn't able to come, so asked me to keep an eye on her.'

Sounding extremely confused, Tienne just said, 'You know Emma? What...'

Hermione could see it, she knew Lily was going to enjoy saying this far more than should be allowed. A smirk crossing her face, she said, 'Well, our daughters have been best friends since they were eleven, and have now been dating for nearly a year. Not so unusual at all, when you think about it.'

'Oh my god...' Both of Aimée's hands clapped over her face, forcing out a hard sigh. She was probably remembering she had spent quite a bit of time last Christmas mercilessly teasing the two of them. Hermione considered having mercy on her, explaining Charissa probably didn't care — honestly, she'd be surprised if Charissa even remembered it — but in the end she decided to let her suffer. If an opportunity to get even presented itself, after all, Hermione wasn't inclined to ruin it for no good reason.

Both women stared at them for a moment. Then Tienne brought her own palm smacking into her face. 'Mum?'

'Yes?'

'Do you remember Maïa's girlfriend's name?'

'Of course I do. What does that have to do with—' Grand-maman broke off, her eyes flicking up to the ceiling just for an instant before turning back to Tienne. 'We're idiots.'

'Yeah.'

In a couple short moments, after proper introductions — Grand-maman was being a bit rude, still, but Lily didn't seem to mind, looking more amused than anything — they were all seated around the table. Which had required conjuring another chair and expanding the table a bit, both of which Lily did without even drawing her wand. Show-off. Aimée was staring at Lily with that unnervingly powerful awe again, and Hermione noticed Tienne wasn't much behind her, either. Grand-maman had just raised an eyebrow a little at the display, giving Lily a look, as though suggesting that had been a bit excessive.

Lily just smirked at her.

After a bit more dancing around, the other three growing gradually more comfortable with Lily there the longer she went without doing anything impossible by normal person standards, Hermione finally felt comfortable bringing up the thing she'd been wondering about this entire time. 'Okay, I'm sorry, but, _how_ do you know about magic? I mean, without me knowing about it.'

Somewhat to her surprise, Grand-maman first just took a moment to let out a long sigh. 'You might have guessed, I am tone-deaf.'

Hermione was about to ask when Lily explained, in English. 'French magical slang, she means she's a squib.' Oh. Well, that was an interesting way to say it.

'Yes, that.' By the look on her face, Grand-maman _really_ didn't like that term, but she didn't comment. 'I was born to one of the old noble families, actually. At least,' she said, a little smirk touching her lips, 'back when magical France _had_ noble families.'

Hermione was suddenly remembering, back when Charissa had been visiting on Christmas. She'd ended up explaining Charissa was nobility at some point, and hadn't been entirely surprised when Grand-maman hadn't reacted to that idea well. She hadn't had a lot of opportunity to talk with her grandmother about politics and such, but she was very much aware she didn't have very complimentary thoughts as far as the wealthy in general were concerned. Grand-maman had muttered something under her breath, something flatly sarcastic about how at least the French had had the good sense to execute most of theirs. At the time, she'd thought she'd been referring to the Revolution.

Now, she was pretty sure she'd meant Grindelwald's purges. During which, if she'd really been born into one of the French noble families, almost all of her family had probably been murdered — the French nobility had been hit especially hard, few had survived. But, reading between the lines a bit, Grand-maman seemed to think that was a _good_ thing.

Nope. Hermione had absolutely no idea how to feel about that.

It was Lily who spoke first. 'Which one?'

A faint grimace of distaste pulled at Grand-maman's lips. 'Does it matter?'

'I'm just curious,' Lily said with a shrug. 'You wouldn't happen to have known a married couple named Guiscard and Mélisande?'

For a couple seconds, Grand-maman just stared at Lily, slightly frowning. 'You don't mean Guiscard and Mélisande _d'Angeus_.' Lily nodded, eyebrows raising. 'I... Well, I didn't know them well, of course, they were much older than me. They were distant cousins — third cousins, maybe, I don't remember for sure. I mostly only knew of them because...' Grand-maman seemed uncharacteristically uncomfortable with this topic, actually, shifting in place a little, her voice a low mutter. It was weird. 'My family considered them a politic way to refer to the fact that I was most likely tone-deaf. They had a tone-deaf daughter, a couple decades older than me, it was a bit of a scandal when they expelled her when she was only six. People still remembered. So, I've heard of them a bit, but I barely knew them. Why?'

Lily brightly smiled, casually sipped at her water for a moment before explaining. 'No reason. Just, that tone-deaf daughter of theirs was my grandmother.'

' _Charissa and I are related?!'_ Hermione clapped her hand over her mouth, glancing around her. That'd come out much louder than she'd meant it to. More than just the eyes at their table were turned to her, and she sunk into her chair a little, trying to fight the flush of embarrassment rising on her cheeks.

Sounding faintly amused, but obviously trying not to, Lily said, 'Oh, come now, Hermione. That would be like _eighth_ cousins or something. That doesn't even count.'

Well...no, she guessed it didn't. Assuming no pedigree collapse, eighth cousins would mean about...point five percent consanguinity? Something like that. Which is actually small enough it's physically impossible — since humans only have twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, direct relatedness like that would only come in intervals of roughly two point two percent. It is possible people could be genetically similar by smaller intervals, yes, but that would be due to them having chromosomes with coincidentally identical copies of the same genes, not necessarily a sign of blood relation. So, really, there was no reason to think she and Charissa were any more closely related than two strangers picked randomly.

That wasn't really the _point_ though. It was _ridiculous_. The world was just...bloody _ridiculous_.

And Lily wouldn't stop smirking at her. Hermione wasn't sure if she'd ever wanted to hex someone more badly in her entire life.

So she focused on Grand-maman's explanation of how laws around the Statute work, which by crazy circumstance made it illegal for them to tell Dad about magic — Dad had already been out of the house before Tienne had been born, so he hadn't been considered "immediate" family, so they weren't allowed to let him know. Anne, who had also moved out already, apparently didn't know about magic either. Which meant Eugène and Rémy, who would have been sixteen and thirteen, _did_ know about magic, and had needed to keep the secret from their elder brother and sister. Actually, Rémy was even here for the event, at the moment with the rest of Aimée's family, including Théo, who was apparently _also_ magical.

This was just... This was all so completely insane. She just...

She would like reality to stop fucking with her, please.

* * *

 _August 3rd, 1995_

* * *

For what could well be the dozenth time, James fiddled with the parchment folder, the gently steaming tea, where exactly they sat in front of him on his desk, making sure everything was exactly as it should be, neatly arranged.

For what could well be the hundredth time, he silently reassured himself he was _not_ nervous. Of course not, that would be silly. And entirely irrational. There was no reason to be nervous at all, no, not in this particular situation, nor in any other similar one the thought had occurred to him in. He really didn't know why he felt like he was sometimes. What did he think was going to happen, honestly? He couldn't believe how ridiculous he was sometimes, he would just stop.

Besides, he could well imagine how mercilessly Sirius would tease him if he were ever given reason to believe James was scared of his own fifteen-year-old daughter. He wasn't, of course, this silly nervousness just sort of made it look like it.

It wasn't long, just a few moments after he'd sent his message, that there was a light knock, the door leading out into the hall swinging open a bit. By the time Charissa leaned in a little, her mouth opening to speak, James had already reinforced the barriers about his mind, hopefully enough to keep her out. He knew it wouldn't be enough to hold her off if she actually _tried_ to force her way in — he was far from a master of mind magic, he was well aware from exposure to Snape over the years he couldn't fight off a true legilimens — but he'd never felt any hint of an attempt before. Charissa didn't end up saying anything, her eyes flicking to the folder and waiting tea, nodding slightly to herself. She stepped into his office, closed the door behind her, and walked over to take a seat across from him.

Breaking away from her characteristically implacable stare, James turned to pour the tea, once again telling himself he was _not_ nervous, he was being ridiculous. 'I'm guessing you know what this is about.'

'I assumed we'd do it this month, yes.' Charissa accepted her cup from him and, the motion so smooth it was probably unconscious, started raising it to her lips. Then she paused, eyes flicking down to stare at the tea. After a short moment of silence, little flickers of magic making the air shiver so slightly he could barely feel it, Charissa set the cup back down on the surface of his desk, folding her hands in her lap.

Okay, James was definitely uncomfortable now. That... She couldn't have noticed, could she? He knew Charissa should definitely be able to cast a handful of detection spells by now that would have picked it up, but it looked like she hadn't even done anything consciously. 'Is something wrong?'

For a couple seconds, Charissa just stared at him. Her voice even and calm, sounding more absently curious than annoyed, she said, 'There seems to be a potion in my tea.'

He managed to hold back a wince. There was, yes, he'd done that. 'It's nothing bad,' he said, forcing himself to make a casual shrug. 'It's just a very mild calming draught is all. It's in mine, too.' Charissa's eyes flicked to the cup in his hand, just for a second. He was idly curious if she could see the magic in the potion somehow — he knew Lily almost always could, but he hadn't thought Charissa had inherited that. 'It's possible we might end up arguing, and I thought it was best. You know, just as a precaution, to keep things from getting out of hand.'

Charissa didn't seem to react to that at all — her expression was still entirely blank, just steadily staring at him. He tried not to be uncomfortable. It'd always struck him as odd, the way Charissa had of just...watching people. Ever since she'd been very young, far too young to be that still and quiet. These days, that subtle weight of power making the air around her tingle and hiss didn't make it any _less_ unnerving, don't think he didn't notice. Finally, she said, 'Am I missing something? Is there a reason you think we both need to be drugged to have a conversation?'

'No particular reason, really. I just thought...' He shrugged, not entirely sure what he'd been thinking. Maybe that _had_ been just a terrible idea.

'I'm not an idiot, you know.' Charissa let out a sigh, her eyes tipping up to the ceiling. She leaned further into the back of her chair, arms slowly crossing under her chest. When she spoke again, her eyes had fallen closed, which he couldn't help feeling faintly relieved by. 'I really wish you wouldn't be afraid of me.'

This time, he failed to contain his wince, but with her eyes closed at the moment it didn't really matter. 'I'm not afraid of you, Charissa.'

'I know you're lying.'

'See, now I know _you're_ lying,' he said, a weak smirk touching his lips. 'I may not be great at occlumency, but I'm good enough there's no way you could possibly know that.'

It could be his imagination, but that expression only faintly showing itself, he was _pretty sure_ that was an affectionate sort of amusement. He'd certainly seen something similar on Lily's face enough times to recognise it. 'I don't need to be able to see into your head. You lie like a Gryffindor, Dad, all bluster and forceful confidence. It's obvious.'

James couldn't help a slight, exasperated huff. Mother had said something very similar more than once. But he wasn't lying. Not really. He wouldn't say he was afraid of his daughter.

He _would_ say he didn't understand her. Not even a little bit.

Not that that was new, really. He'd never understood her that well, to be honest. Looking back on it, Charissa had been _very_ strange, growing up. At the time, he hadn't thought much of it — really, he'd mostly just passed it off as Charissa being more like Lily, or his own mother, than himself. She'd always had that stare, of course. She'd always been quiet. Weirdly quiet, now that he thought about it. He didn't know if he'd ever seen her cry. Well, that wasn't true — he remembered a few times, she'd been two or three or four, angry to the point of tears, obviously frustrated about something — but it hadn't been very often, and it'd always come and gone in a few minutes. He didn't know if he'd ever seen her _laugh_. At least, not until she'd been older, but even then, the first few times he'd witnessed it it'd just seemed so...fake. To him. Like an act. It didn't reach her eyes. Neither did most of her expressions, really.

He'd tried to understand her, when she'd been younger, tried to figure her out. But she was just so... Ever since she'd been old enough to read, she'd spent an absurd proportion of her time sitting in the library, the books splayed in her lap more often than not, to put it lightly, not intended for children. Not _bad_ stuff, necessarily — though he didn't think he'd ever forget the time he'd walked into the library one day and Charissa, all of six at the time, had asked him what "orgiastic" meant. It was unfathomable to him how she'd never really seemed to want to do anything else. She'd never wanted to go out and fly, she'd never wanted to play with her cousins. She'd tolerate it when she was made to, yes, but she never _asked_ to, and she participated only as much as was expected of her, and then made her solitary way back to her books.

In retrospect, he shouldn't have been the least bit surprised when she'd been Sorted into Ravenclaw.

And even when she _did_ do other things, looking back on it, it had seemed less like play, less like she was legitimately enjoying herself, and more like... He didn't know. Ritual? Like they were steps that had to be followed, some obligation that must be fulfilled. How they used to go out to the lake sometimes just the two of them, as an example. Thinking about it, it was sort of odd, how she had the same schedule they had to follow every time, hitting the same points in the same order. Like checking things off some list that only existed in her head. And he'd assumed it was something that she'd _wanted_ to do, but... Well, Father had died, and he'd suddenly had a lot more demands on his time, and that was one of the things that ended up being cut. Charissa's whole ritual took too long, too much of a time investment all in one block, for him to really make room for it. And she'd never mentioned it again. She'd never asked when they could go out to the lake, hadn't seemed disappointed at all. He wasn't sure what to think about that.

And now that she was older, enough that she could speak for herself more coherently... No, he didn't understand her at all. It was sort of odd the things she just didn't care about. What she ate. What she wore, for the most part. Quidditch — when she'd been younger, he'd thought she just hated the game, but on closer examination it looked more like she actually just didn't give a damn one way or the other. As long as she had enough time to practise magic and keep up with her seemingly interminable reading habits — as far as he could tell, the only things she did for fun, because she wanted to — she would willingly let herself be dragged along to do whatever was expected of her. Unlike her brothers, she never complained about being brought to visit one relative or another, unending society obligations. She didn't enjoy herself, no, that was obvious, but she didn't complain either.

She didn't even seem to care about her friends! He knew she had them, he'd heard from their parents on several occasions, but she never mentioned them. She never went out of her way to visit them over the holidays — even when she did, she simply left through the floo with no warning, returning some hours later, the whole thing apparently undeserving of comment. He didn't really know what they did together. Some duelling practice, he assumed, but other than that.

Don't even get him started on her relationship with Hermione. If Lily hadn't told him about it almost right away, he probably wouldn't have even known that was happening until they'd been in the _Prophet_ in December last year. He would admit he'd been going a little far teasing her about Hermione lately, simply trying to get _some_ reaction out of her. It was strange watching them interact. He could sort of see it on Hermione's end — she wasn't the most expressive girl herself, most of the time it was hard to tell — but if he hadn't known what was going on he would have thought Charissa was talking to a distant acquaintance, not her girlfriend of, what, nearly a year now?

He didn't understand. He didn't understand how someone could be as apathetic, as distant, as quiet, as cold as Charissa was. He felt like he was always waiting for the shoe to drop, for the mask to fall away and show her true face, because someone simply _couldn't_ be that...empty. Sometimes he found himself wondering what she really thought, what she really felt. But no, that was nonsense. He knew she wasn't hiding, she wasn't pretending — no one could keep so consistent an act from such an early age. It was just the way she was. And he didn't understand it.

Sometimes, he thought to himself it was Lily's fault, that she'd taught her too much dark magic too young, that it was even now overwhelming her. But he knew that couldn't be it — it had _always_ been the way she was, and Lily hadn't started teaching her that sort of thing until she'd been twelve or so.

The thought of Lily distracted him for a short moment. He still felt guilty about that. He'd tried to save her, to preserve the good in her he'd known was there, to drag her away from the Dark. It was very obvious he'd failed. Perhaps his own mistakes had contributed to that a bit — it was clear in retrospect that they'd expected _very_ different things from their relationship, neither of them figuring that out until it'd been far too late — but he thought he might have been doomed to fail from the start. It'd been perhaps rather delusional of him to think he'd ever be able to succeed, that he'd been making progress at all. It was obvious, now, why Lily had been so tired all the time. Fighting one's true nature _was_ exhausting, after all.

It really didn't help that Lily _still_ didn't believe there was anything wrong with using the kind of magic she threw around without even thinking. And since she was a sorceress, nobody else in her life was ever inclined to try to convince her, he was the only one who hadn't been too intimidated by her power, too enraptured by the feel of it, to ever disagree with her to her face. She would only get worse, now.

But that wasn't the point, he was getting off track.

He didn't understand Charissa at all. He saw now that Lily had been trying to warn him, trying to get him to see Charissa wasn't an ordinary girl. But he hadn't understood, hadn't thought it was nearly so serious as Lily had been suggesting. It'd never really sunk in to him, he hadn't been able to see Charissa as anything other than his baby girl. He hadn't seen.

Not to say Charissa _never_ scared him, of course — he could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she'd ever been legitimately angry in his presence, and it'd never been fun. Thick, suffocating magic rising to clench around him, stabbing sharp and freezing cold. Deadly black magic flowing through her as smooth and easy as breath. Those moments had scared him before, yes, perhaps even terrified him, but they didn't happen very often. Most of the time, she was incomprehensible, not frightening.

The smart thing to do, he'd decided, was to talk to her like she was Elizabeth, or Andromeda — a proud, self-reliant dark witch who did _not_ appreciate any emotionally-centred expectations or obligations being forced on her. And honesty, at least partial honesty, whenever possible, as he was well aware he couldn't lie well enough to fool them, and any attempts at subtlety on his part would probably just result in them getting annoyed with him.

So, it was thinking of his distant, prickly sister that he said, 'You do scare me sometimes, Charissa, I wouldn't claim you don't. But not very often. Mostly, you just confuse me. I have trouble keeping up.' He shrugged, letting his hand fall on the parchment folder. 'So, if you could be as honest as possible with your opinions in this whole thing, that would be helpful.'

Charissa's eyes opened, again falling to stare blankly back at him. Only for a couple seconds, but he still had to force himself not to fidget. 'Okay. I can do that.'

Right. Good. That was over with, then. Okay. He took a sip of his tea, trying not to let show any sign of relief when the edges of his anxiety were soothed away. 'Before we start, ah...' He narrowed his eyes at Charissa, Charissa slightly raising an eyebrow at the look. 'You know I'm not going to try to talk you into marrying someone you object to, right? If you don't like someone, say so. At any point.'

'I know, Dad.' She seemed a bit amused with him again. He wasn't really sure why.

'Now, I have been talking with a few people, gotten a few letters.' And if that hadn't been... Well, he was trying to arrange a matrilineal marriage, here. The vast majority of Light Noble Houses were patriarchal. That was naturally going to limit their options somewhat. He hadn't been able to stop himself from being distantly mortified, seeing the names of the families asking after Charissa.

Not for the first time, he wished Mum hadn't managed to convince Dad to change Potter family law. She'd said it was unfair Elizabeth had been passed over in primacy for the title because they'd had a son, and Dad had listened — though the changes hadn't applied retroactively, so James had still become Lord. Not surprising Mum would feel that way, granted, having been born to a House once strictly matriarchal, some old traditions and attitudes still lingering centuries later. But it was why Charissa was his heir, and not Linden. It would be so much more convenient if it were Linden.

No point distracting him with the thought now, though. 'But before we get into that, is there anyone in particular you'd prefer? I can see what I can do.'

Charissa didn't even hesitate an instant. 'Neville would be acceptable.'

For a couple seconds, James could only blink at that. Honestly, he hadn't even considered Neville. Due to how close Lily and Alice were, Neville had been around almost constantly since they'd been very young — he would have thought they'd see each other less like potential partners and more like pseudo-siblings. He hadn't thought Charissa would be open to it. That would be very convenient, though. The Longbottoms were already close allies which, yes, not ideal, but a far lesser threat to his House's alliances as they presently stood. 'I hadn't consider Neville. I'll ask Augusta, see what she thinks.' While Charissa nodded, James flicked the folder opened. Not that he really needed to — there was exactly _one_ matriarchal Light Noble House, he wouldn't have forgotten. 'Lady Tugwood tells me, ah...'

For an instant, James relived the decidedly strange experience of reading a letter casually referring — "...as you are no doubt aware..." — to an intimate relationship between his daughter and a boy from another House he hadn't known existed until that very moment.

He shook his head, focused on the present moment again. 'Anyway, his name is Clement, I believe?'

That hadn't been all James had been intending to say on the topic, but before he could continue Charissa flatly said, 'No.'

He blinked. 'No?'

'Clement Tugwood is not acceptable.'

That...was honestly not what he'd expected her to say. Not even a little bit. From what Lady Tugwood had said, Charissa and this Clement had been, ah, shagging rather a lot lately. (The thought of his daughter shagging anyone at all still felt very strange, but he did his best to ignore that.) He would have thought... 'Why not?'

Charissa shrugged. 'He's too...timid? I'm certain I would quickly grow bored of him.'

Oh. Well. Okay. Trying to keep the worst of his confusion off of his face, he flipped Lady Tugwood's letter over and to the side, doing his best to shake the thought off. Strike one, then. There were a few other Tugwoods available, he knew, but they were significantly older than Charissa, so it was very possible she'd never even met them. If Charissa could refuse Clement as an option this easily, he would certainly need to have them meet before asking her opinion. Because Charissa just had to be picky.

He realised he was being a massive hypocrite — there were reasons Dad had surrendered and let him marry Lily. But still.

And they continued on through the list. James quite intentionally started with the families he found least objectionable — which there unfortunately weren't very many of, arranging a matrilineal marriage was a pain — and was not entirely surprised when Charissa either didn't know who he was talking about, or rejected them with hardly a thought. He was somewhat surprised, though, when Charissa tentatively said Ashley Glanwvyl would be fine. He hadn't realised they even knew each other. The Glanwvyls did have some rather odd traditions, true — they were one of a couple families descended from the ancient priesthood of Inys Ðyvīl, there were a few relics of pagan times they hadn't entirely abandoned. But they were a comparatively inoffensive neutral family, politically speaking, that wouldn't be _too_ bad...

And then they started getting into names James _really_ wasn't happy to even be considering. The families he simply couldn't stand the thought of Charissa marrying he'd ignored entirely, simply burning their letters — he'd been more amused than anything when he'd gotten a letter from Lord Yaxley, who _had_ to know James despised him, but later the same day the thought of a _Travers_ marrying into the family had made him quite sick to his stomach — but that left a few he still wasn't pleased to be talking about. Some of them were okay, sure. The Scrimgeours were pretty decent. The Slughorns could be a pain _sometimes_ , yes, and he had very ambivalent memories of one Slughorn in particular — though even the rest of the Slughorns tended to think old Horace was a bit of an eccentric coot — but the family overall wasn't too unpleasant. The Inghams... Eh, he could tolerate the thought of an Ingham becoming a Potter, sure. There were far worse out there.

Fortunately, Charissa seemed faintly unimpressed with most of the boys from families he didn't particularly like. Lucky coincidence, there.

Before continuing on, James gave the name on the next page a distrustful frown. He still didn't know how to feel about this one. They were a _solidly_ Dark family — once upon a time, rabidly blood-purist and irrationally muggle-hating, to an almost genocidal degree. They were considerably more moderate these days, but still made no apologies for their preference for black magic, several members and close relatives didn't even attempt to hide that they were Parselmouths. In fact, most publicly-known Parselmouths were connected to the family somehow. Lord Gaunt had even been so brazen as to mention that as one of the reasons he favoured Charissa — it was far more likely for the mother's magical abilities to be inherited than the father's, so the best way to spread the ability to as many descendants as possible was to marry his Parselmouth granddaughters to non-Parselmouths, yes, but his grand _sons_ , especially those that hadn't inherited the ability, to Parselmouths. Not being subtle about his inclinations at all.

But it was complicated, because... Well, he might not agree with them on everything, but he at least trusted his mother and Augusta to be decent judges of character. He knew Mum and Lord Gaunt's mother were friendly acquaintances. While Augusta and Gaunt were often vicious political enemies, they got along just fine in more personal contexts — Augusta had even said to him once Gaunt was one of the more interesting and entertaining people she knew of at the moment, good for staving off boredom if nothing else.

So, he was naturally conflicted.

Eventually he fought it off, shaking his head before sending a somewhat sheepish smile up at Charissa. 'Sorry. Do you know Lord Gaunt's grandson?'

Charissa raised an eyebrow. 'Which one?'

James glanced down at the page again, searching out the name. 'Ah, Caelestis.'

An expression of faint distaste crossed Charissa's face. 'No. I mean, I do know him, but he's unacceptable.' At James's questioning look, she said, 'He's an arrogant arse. And also incompetent — I could understand being so enamored with himself if he were at least proportionately impressive, but he's really not. Also, he's taken whatever opportunities present themselves to be cruel to Neville for no reason. We do not get along.

'But...' Charissa paused a moment, eyes very slightly narrowed, tongue visibly flicking at her teeth. 'Lord Gaunt didn't happen to mention his other grandson?'

'What's his name?' James would hedge not, but he turned back to the letter to check anyway.

'Hesper.'

Ah, yes, the name was familiar — he remembered Hesperos and Alexis Gaunt had been in Charissa's duelling team for the Tournament at Hogwarts, he'd met them briefly. A quick skim top to bottom showed Lord Gaunt _had_ mentioned Hesper, but only in passing, referencing their friendship to clarify how he'd gotten the impression of Charissa he had. 'No, not really. Why?'

'Hesper would be...' James blinked at the slightly absent tone of her voice, glanced up to look at her. He couldn't say exactly what that expression was. Pensive, perhaps, thinking of something far away from this conversation with him. Finally, she managed to pull herself back enough to say, 'Hesper is...I don't know, entertaining. I'd be satisfied with Hesper.'

And James blinked again — _satisfied?_ That had to be the most unambiguously positive thing Charissa had said about any possibility thus far. Which was...odd. He really wasn't sure how to feel about that. Mum and Augusta's feelings about particular people in the family notwithstanding, he wasn't sure he was _entirely_ comfortable with the idea of a Gaunt marrying into his House. It still felt rather...just, wrong, slightly surreal.

But, well, this wasn't about him, was it?

He let out a sigh, flipping the folder closed. They had been pretty much done anyway, and Charissa had left him with a few possibilities he could follow up on. No reason to get into families he liked even less when one of the people they'd talked about already would probably work out. 'Well, I suppose I can ask Lord Gaunt about Hesper. I'll get back to you on that.'

Charissa just nodded again. But, and this could be his imagination, James thought he caught _very_ faint traces of a smile about her eyes.

* * *

 _August 11th, 1995_

* * *

Charissa was trying not to be uncomfortable.

It wasn't because of where she was, particularly. Sure, she hadn't ever spent that much time at the old family manor — for whatever reason, her father preferred a home life more...intimate, she supposed was the word, so despite him being Lord of the House she'd never actually lived here. But the wards obviously recognised her as a Potter, drifting about her as a warm cloak, the more fiercely protective scripts, cued by the ring on her finger she'd been wearing so long she usually didn't even notice it, looming in the back of her head, a presence subtly whispering deadly intent should anyone try to harm her while under its care. Like many places a great volume of magic had been collected in a single place for a long period of time, the manor's wards had developed the slightest hints of a personality of its own — she'd known since she'd been rather young that anyone who tried to do anything to her against her will here of all places would deeply regret it.

They would live, of course. Her House's founder had been very consciously ethical, to the point of being a bit preachy. While the wards had been put up after his time, it was soon enough after they would still reflect his ideals to a certain extent. It wouldn't be fun, in any case.

Sure, she'd never been in this particular room before. Not that it was really anything special. Just a simple wooden table, longer than it was wide, a collection of padded chairs lining both the longer sides, a double-wide chair at the head she'd been placed in. The rest was just the white marble much of the manor was built of — imitating the Wizengamot hall, she assumed, though she'd never had the impression confirmed. Since part of the ceiling was glass, letting the midday sunlight spill into the room, it _was_ a little hard on the eyes. The searing white marble gleaming all around her, glittering with embedded crystal. It had set her eyes to watering until she'd just cast an underpowered obscuring charm over her own eyes, problem solved.

Though she'd done it silently and wandlessly, Grandmother had obviously still noticed and even known what she was doing, shooting her a faint, amused smirk.

And she had been forced to wear a particular thing against her will, true, but it wasn't that bad. It wasn't that different than what she usually wore duelling, she didn't mind. Grandmother had said that was only appropriate, considering they were arranging a matrilineal marriage here, and exactly who was in her immediate ancestry. She'd obviously been referring to the Blacks, of course, who were still quite well known for producing warrior women, repeatedly and consistently over their entire history, but Charissa thought it had also been an oblique reference to Mum — oblique, because Dad had been in the room at the time. The colours were a bit unusual, yes, far brighter than she would normally wear, all white and gold and red. Potter colours, of course. But that wasn't enough to bother her.

Though, it was a bit odd using wand holsters that were actually visible. She was used to wearing ones charmed so other people couldn't see them, but she knew this time the leather on both her forearms would be perfectly obvious to everyone else. It made her distinctly uncomfortable, as though she were somehow more exposed than she usually was. Very slightly vulnerable, in a way she couldn't exactly explain. But it wasn't that bad, she was trying to ignore it.

No, mostly the thing making her uncomfortable was the thought of why exactly she was here, what exactly they were about to do.

Once upon a time, when the ancient Celtic clans had been little more than semi-nomadic tribes, running up to a marriage between different clans the person marrying from one to the other would spend some time among the new clan before the marriage itself actually happened, familiarising themselves with their future family and the slightly different customs and traditions that might come up. After the old clans eventually became modern Houses, a similar tradition was maintained, though with a slightly different purpose: the House displaying their power and wealth to a potential spouse and their immediate family, to influence their opinions and priorities somewhat. Showing off, basically. These days, especially among the less populous Houses like hers, it was normal for the person in her position to wait in a prepared room, with a few immediate family members speaking for her — in Charissa's case, her grandmother, sitting around the corner to her left, and her father, seated at his opposite side. A member of the House of lesser prominence — the youngest that was yet mature enough to handle such a thing, generally, though there was some variation on that — would meet the potential spouse and their family at the wardline, go through a few ritual welcoming things, that nonsense, then lead them on through. Perry had met the Gaunts already, they should be walking on their way here — too far away for Charissa to feel their minds, but she had noticed the wards give a slight twinge a little bit ago, probably their guests crossing the wardline.

And Charissa was uncomfortable. She didn't want to be doing this. She'd known growing up she would have to get married eventually — it was expected of virtually everyone in Noble Houses, how small House Potter was at the moment only making it even more important. That she was the future Lady of the House essentially left her with no choice in the matter. And true, if she were being completely honest with herself, she wasn't as annoyed with this whole thing as she could have been. It wasn't for sure yet, of course, but Hesper was a thousand times better than some of the idiots she could have been saddled with. If she were to be stuck with _someone_ for the rest of her life, Hesper wasn't bad at all. He wasn't likely to aggravate her overmuch.

To be a bit blunt about it, she'd half-expected far worse. She'd thought it very likely Dad would try to set her up with people she'd have far more trouble tolerating, one of whom she'd end up consenting to anyway, since she really just didn't care that much. It was possible the "damage" she'd done to her reputation the last couple years had actually helped her there: most of the people she'd find most objectionable probably wanted nothing to do with her anymore.

But she really didn't want to do this. Not that she was _that_ strongly opposed or anything — at least, not enough to try to fight Dad on it. It wasn't that she _hated_ the idea of marrying and having children, fulfilling her obligations to her House so far as that was concerned. It just... The whole prospect simply held zero appeal to her. None, at all. She would do it if she had to, sure, but she didn't _want_ to.

To be completely honest, she wasn't sure she understood why people _would_ want to. She didn't entirely understand why marriage existed. Sure, that people continued to do it now that the social and legal framework was already established, she guessed that made sense. There were advantages built into the system to be exploited, after all. But she wasn't sure why people would have implemented that framework in the first place. What was the point? Perhaps this was just her being strange again, but she didn't see why she should feel the need to marry anyone. What difference did it make? If that social and legal framework didn't exist, and she were to, say, marry Hermione, what would that actually change? She didn't see how it would be any different, not in any way that mattered. At least, not to her. Hermione was already hers, and everyone already knew that, so taking all that effort to declare it so, and so dramatically like other people did, seemed silly and superfluous. She didn't understand the entire concept.

She didn't understand why people would want to have children, either. It just seemed like a lot of work, and a lot of frustration, for no real gain. Well, okay, she understood there was some emotional fulfillment normal people got out of it, fine. But since she was weird, and she had absolutely no clue what that fulfillment was supposed to feel like anyway, she knew she wouldn't get out if it what other people did. She didn't have to try it to find out, she knew. She knew she would just think children were more effort, and more annoying, than they were worth. She guessed she _could_ understand some people might want children to preserve their legacy after their own deaths — they did seem worth the investment then — but what with the Blessing and all, she was immortal anyway, so she'd be able to take care of that herself. She wasn't vehemently opposed to the idea or anything, she just didn't see why she should care. She couldn't see why she should weigh herself down with an obligation to care for children when she didn't need nor want them.

But, of course, for social and political reasons, she was more or less required to. In the privacy of her own thoughts, when she had the opportunity to think about that undisturbed, it _rankled_. She'd never really liked being told what to do. A few people she'd given license to do it, but even then obeying was a choice she consciously made, either because she wanted to please them for whatever reason or she thought she had to. She couldn't fathom why people were content to do things because _it's what you're supposed to do_ , or _it's just what is done_. While she had no particular desire to, she wouldn't be that strongly opposed to marrying or having children, but because she was essentially being _coerced_ into doing so just so people would take her seriously was, just...

It annoyed her. It was stupid, she didn't want to do it, but British society as a whole was _making_ her, and she felt cornered, and she hated it. And since there wasn't any conversation going on around her at the moment, she had absolutely no choice but to sit here and think about how much she hated it.

Fuck, she really just wished this day would be over already.

Thankfully, they'd only been sitting in awkward silence for a couple minutes when she started feeling them. She felt Perry first. He still didn't quite know how to feel about this whole thing — at first, he'd been a bit shocked that she would be marrying a _Gaunt_ , but he'd calmed down a bit when she'd explained it'd actually been her idea, she didn't mind Hesper. He was still conflicted, she could tell, but a bit less immediately hostile to the idea. Though, he was weirdly happy at the moment, for no immediately obvious reason. Tracing the thought quick, she saw the Gaunts had brought Mum with them — normally she would be here with Dad and Grandmother, but since she wasn't a Potter anymore, she was technically not considered family, so hadn't been invited. Apparently, the Gaunts had decided to invite her themselves. Strange. Following shortly behind Perry were two minds, one entirely opaque, rigidly blocked off with flawless occlumency, the other—

Charissa straightened in her chair somewhat, turned to stare through the wall in the person's direction. She'd admit she wasn't great at this sort of thing yet, but _that_ was a legilimens. The feeling of his mind shifting, turning under hers strongly reminded her of Severus, there was no mistaking it. Much like Severus usually did now that she could better control herself, he didn't try to hide his thoughts from her. Or, at least, not _all_ of his thoughts — it wasn't impossible he could compartmentalise his mind the way Severus could. And even as she saw his faint amusement with Perry, his slight distaste with the aesthetics of the manor, he mostly seemed to be filled with a tingling curiosity. A curiosity, she could tell, that was focused on her.

At the same instant, she felt the crawling twitches of a foreign presence sliding into her mind, the other legilimens obviously noticing her. Then something very strange happened. The man thought of a memory very consciously, bringing it to the forefront of his mind, essentially flashing it in front of her eyes. A memory of him introducing himself to someone, his intent obvious — the legilimens was Leuteris, Lord Regent of House Gaunt and Hesper's grandfather. Only Lord _Regent_ , Charissa knew, because his mother was still technically Lady Gaunt, but she'd been sharing most of her responsibilities with her son for some decades now. This first memory was followed by a flurry of further ones, too many and too quick for Charissa to pick out specific details, but enough to get the general idea (probably intentional on his part). Old impressions of Gaunt first meeting Grandmother when he'd been young, back when she'd still been a Black even, then further flashes over the decades of his acquaintanceship with her estranged aunt Elizabeth, and then her mother, who looked really young in the earliest memories, she must have been in Hogwarts still, first hearing anything substantial about Charissa talking to Mum after a trial she'd given evidence in, and then random gossip later — she winced when she caught him hearing exactly who had attacked Pansy Parkinson, he'd actually witnessed it but not know who she was — far more frequent gossip in the last couple years, and of course almost incessant references from the twins lately, a memory she was surprised he was showing him involving he and his mother and his daughter talking about his eldest grandson, Charissa eventually coming up in the conversation, noting making an ally of her would probably turn out to be exceptionally beneficial in the near future, Dad pulling him aside after a Wizengamot meeting to say Charissa did not approve of Caelestis, but she _would_ entertain Hesper, if House Gaunt was—

The flood of memories abruptly ceased, and Charissa was temporarily disoriented, almost nauseatingly dizzy despite never having moved from her seat. She took a moment to breathe, resettle herself, before focusing again. It was obvious what Lord Gaunt was trying to do, so she did her best to imitate it. She brought up a memory from one of those ridiculous society functions she'd been dragged to at one point, her curtseying to...she couldn't remember, to be— Ah, she caught Gaunt's thought identifying the man as Iolyn Fawley, there were too many Fawleys, she could never keep them straight. She returned the favour with her own outpouring of memories and impressions, whatever she could think of — mostly interactions with Alex and Hesper, she hadn't much other contact with their House. She did include a few quick flashes of Caelestis, but didn't even bother trying to hide how much she disliked him. Maybe she should have, she wasn't sure, really.

By the subtle warmth of amusement shivering across his mind, Gaunt obviously didn't care.

The entire process was only repeated an instant later, when _another_ legilimens walked into Charissa's range. Shortly behind Leuteris and the blocked mind Charissa assumed was his mother came Hesper and his parents, Hesper's mother's mind turning the same way her father's had. A similar flood of memories reached her from Áine Gaunt — not for the first time, Charissa couldn't help feeling faintly amused the future Lady of an unapologetically Dark family bore the name of an old goddess of the summer sun — mostly just involving all three of her children mentioning Charissa at one point or another. Charissa didn't think they were connected any other way, though they were...third cousins? She thought it was third cousins, through the— Ah, okay, yes, Áine knew it was third cousins, her grandmother had been born a Black. Apparently, from a couple memories Áine followed that up with, she _had_ been in Slytherin in the same year with Charissa's aunt Bellatrix, who was also Áine's third cousin, but they hadn't been close, and she'd assumed (correctly) that Charissa didn't know her very well anyway. Like she'd done with Leuteris, Charissa quickly returned the favour, not that she had much to say.

Charissa wondered if this were a thing legilimens just did on meeting, quickly establishing how exactly and how well they knew of the other. By the traces of amusement both Leuteris and Áine showed at the thought, that seemed very possible. Sort of strange, but okay.

Charissa only took a moment to quickly note the shielded mind she knew was Hesper's father — she vaguely remembered his name was Fidelis, born an Ingham, she believed, a cousin of the Phoibe Ingham who'd been captain of the duelling team back in Charissa's second year — and then Hesper between them. His mind had always felt weird to her, though she could never think of the words to describe it. Like it wasn't shaped quite correctly. If she were to guess, she would say Hesper's mind were about the same size as anyone else's, so far as the word "size" was applicable, but it still somehow seemed...fragmented. Like the webs that made up his thoughts and feelings and memories in some places just trailed off into nothingness. But then, threads also came _out_ of that nothingness, spreading in from somewhere else. Alexis, of course. The familiar web she mostly perceived people's minds as spread across the both of them, seemingly without any seams or breaks. Even when they were a hundred miles away from each other, as they were now, it was still looked more like Charissa was only seeing half of a mind, the other half somehow hidden. It was actually less confusing for her these days to deal with Alexis and Hesper at the same time — then it would just seem like she was looking at a normal mind, if roughly twice as active as average, it wasn't fundamentally different than any single ordinary person.

Before, she'd always wondered how exactly Alexis and Hesper conceptualised themselves. She'd known there was some degree of thought-sharing going on, obviously, but she'd wondered if there was a line between what is Alexis, what is Hesper, how they thought of themselves as separate. She knew the answer now: they didn't. To Alexis and Hesper, there was no meaningful difference between the two. They were a single consciousness that happened to be bound to two separate bodies.

Personally, Charissa found it fascinating, from a theoretical mind magic perspective, but it'd never seemed appropriate to ask them if she could comb through their heads to try to figure out how they worked, so she'd kept the thought to herself.

But anyway, she slipped into Hesper's mind — or Hesper and Alex's, as it were — only long enough to check on his mental state. He seemed somehow lazily pleased, reminding Charissa of nothing more than Augí spread out napping in a patch of sun. Then she quick noted another shielded mind trailing behind them she recognised even through the occlumency as her mother's by the texture, for lack of a better word, and pulled away again, leaned back in her seat, forcing herself to relax as much as possible.

It wasn't long later that the door was turning open, Perry's head tipping in. He said something about the Gaunts being here, blah blah, ritual nonsense. Then there were some quick introductions and greetings between Dad and and two eldest Gaunts. Lady Gaunt was on the near side of elderly — Charissa couldn't remember how old she was exactly, but by the obvious greying of her hair and lines on her face and hands she would guess maybe eighties or nineties — her stature noticeably diminished, back curled and shoulders turned inward. She also, surprisingly, walked with a cane, obviously favouring one hip. Old injury, perhaps? That it hadn't just been summarily fixed at some point probably meant seriously black or white magic was involved somehow. Not that she couldn't still move decently well, but she was leaning rather heavily, enough she'd probably have trouble getting around without some kind of support. Charissa could feel the enchantments wreathing the cane from here, probably to make it a bit easier, not surprising. Actually, she had a feeling the cane might double as a focus, a sort of innocuous staff. But it was obviously necessary in any case. And no matter what physical difficulties she obviously had, her voice was still steady and strong, still giving Dad a flat, measuring look, as though waiting for him to prove he was worth her time, and so far not impressed.

Hesper's grandfather didn't seem all that much younger than his mother, but obviously in better health. Greying noticeably at the temples, looking the absolute picture of refined nobility, with the sharp, smirking sort of face common in the black-haired families, still standing strong and confident under glimmering formal robes. In the whole ritual greeting thing with Dad, he was all pleasantly smiling, even cheerily laughing at one point, but the warmth and energy in voice, face, and gesture made a sharp contrast with the character of his mind. He was cool, calm, and waiting, observing how James spoke with him, the words he said and the way his body shifted, Grandmother's rather minimal reaction to their arrival, how Charissa was holding herself watching from her chair (she wasn't expected to stand for this), sort of subconsciously following the ticking of thoughts in the unshielded minds around them. Just watching, observation free of explicit malice, the social calculus in his head constantly adjusting. But none of this particularly surprised her. Gaunt didn't quite nearly dominate the Dark Houses these days for no reason.

Dad was halfway through welcoming Hesper, sandwiched between his parents — both of whom also with the sharp faces and somewhat short stature and gleaming dark hair of the black families, and both looking somewhat amused, for whatever reason — when the first little jolt of the day came up. Mum walked into the room, again in British-style robes but still with her skin darkened and hair lightened noticeably by Kemetic sun, holding herself perfectly easily and moving perfectly smoothly, as though she had every right to be here. For a few seconds, Dad could just stare at her in silence, finally managing, ' _Lily?_ What are _you_ doing here?'

Mum actually looked a little uncomfortable, for some reason. But she just shrugged. 'Teri invited me.' It did not escape Charissa's notice that Mum was apparently in the habit of calling Leuteris Gaunt by his first name — a shortened, familiar version of it, at that. Though, Charissa thought she might remember something about Gaunt trying to talk Mum into marrying his younger son...

Before Dad could even open his mouth to respond, Lady Gaunt cut across him, her voice tight and hard. 'As was only right to. You should be here.' She turned to make her way to the right side of the table, nodding over to Grandmother, who had remained in her seat just as Charissa had. Nodding, she said, 'Dorea, good to see you again.'

The barest twitches of an amused smirk tilting her lips, Grandmother nodded. 'Merope.'

That use of a first name was less surprising. For personal reasons, Lady Gaunt hadn't been able to attend Hogwarts, so had gotten her education in magic privately. Charissa knew one of her tutors had been Charissa's great-grandmother Violetta Black — Grandmother had still been young at the time, she certainly would have been around. There were reasons Leuteris had had memories to show Charissa of her grandmother before she'd even been a Potter.

And everyone was going for their seats — Áine and Fidelis near to Charissa's right, opposite Grandmother at her left, Lady Gaunt and her son a little further down to her right, opposite Dad to her left. Mum hesitated for a second before conjuring a chair, settling herself a short distance from the table, not taking either side. She wasn't a Potter anymore, and had never been a Gaunt, so she technically didn't belong with either family, that made sense. Hesper was making for the right half of the double-wide chair Charissa was sitting in, and she was just bracing herself to be annoyed — the twins could have an annoying habit of clinging at her sometimes, and by the giggling feel of his mind she had the very distinct feeling she was about to be grabbed at — when she got distracted by something else.

What with her obvious limp and all, Lady Gaunt was having more trouble than anyone else getting into her chair. She had slid the chair back from the table with only a twitch of her cane, proving Charissa had been correct about it working as a focus. But when she was just starting to somewhat awkwardly bend to sit, her son was suddenly at her side, moving to take her elbow. A snarl suddenly overtaking her face, eyes narrowing into a glare, she slapped his grip away with her free hand. 'You _stop_ that, you silly boy,' she muttered in a tone just below a growl. 'I am not that old.'

As Lady Gaunt unsteadily sank into her chair, Leuteris just grinned at her. Well, his face wasn't grinning, anyway — just a barely noticeable smirk, really — but his mind definitely was, quite suddenly bright and warm with affectionate amusement. But he just muttered, 'As you say, Mother,' and slipped into his own chair.

Charissa _tried_ not to jump when, even as Hesper flumped down to sitting next to her, Lady Gaunt broke into whispered Parseltongue. «Honestly, child, you would think I were made of glass. I'm not going to _break_.»

«I know. I'm sorry, Mother.» He may have said it, and maybe even sounded as apologetic as Parseltongue really could, but he didn't seem legitimately chastised at all. He was still faintly smiling, his mind still shining with internal chuckling.

Lady Gaunt could obviously see that, letting out a little huff, shaking her head to herself.

And then Hesper was talking at her, so she turned to focus on that. 'Hey, Cousin,' he said, his face somewhere between a brilliant grin and a smug smirk. 'Fancy meeting you here.'

'Yes, imagine that. A Potter, in the manor held by the family for centuries now. Who would have thought.'

Hesper's face slipped into a pout, but Charissa didn't buy it for a second. He wasn't even trying to hide the pleasant eagerness in his head. 'So mean to me, Charissa. Going all hard and cold like, and I'm just trying to be nice. I would almost think you don't like me.'

Despite herself, Charissa couldn't help a smirk at that. 'Yes, I just despise you. Which explains why I'm sitting here to consent to a marriage with you. That makes sense.'

For some reason, Hesper was suddenly grinning again, seeming just an instant removed from bursting into giggles. Charissa guessed she could just flick through his thoughts to figure out what trail of logic had led to that — she hadn't been watching at the time, hadn't caught it — but she really just didn't care that much.

And then there was more ritual talking going on. Charissa knew most of it, so didn't really pay attention. For the most part, just clarifying the purpose of this little meeting, to make sure everyone knew what they were doing here. Which seemed sort of silly to her, but most society things did if she thought about them long enough. She was well aware they weren't really made for people like her. They'd gotten mostly through their blather when Charissa blinked, unconsciously straightening when she noticed Lady Gaunt's eyes focus on her, dark and narrowed and intense. 'You do know what you're getting into, right, girl? Hesper and Alex don't plan on severing their bond.'

There were a few reactions to that. The Gaunts, of course, didn't react at all, all clearly having already known that — Fidelis almost looked smug, for some reason. Grandmother seemed very faintly amused, Dad somewhat less faintly uncomfortable. Mum was blinking, then muttered under her breath, 'Oh my _god_ , I totally forgot about that,' an odd, almost disturbed expression flicking about her face for a couple seconds.

But Hesper, sitting uncomfortably close to her right, close enough she thought she could feel him breathe, just seemed confused. Only half-confused in his head, at least — it was obvious they knew people might be uncomfortable with them being the way they were, but it didn't quite click why it should bother anyone, a fact learned without being truly understood — but when he spoke it was far thicker on his voice. 'Why would we, though?'

And, despite herself, Charissa found herself slightly amused. 'Yeah, really. It makes sense if you think about it. This way, eventually, they'll be Lord Potter and Lady Gaunt at the same time.' At least, she thought she'd heard Caelestis had been taken out of succession. Nobody corrected her, so she was probably remembering correctly. 'Who wouldn't do that if they could?'

'And, you know, it's just fun messing with people.' Charissa couldn't hold in a snort at the childish earnestness on his voice — it was faked, of course, but that just made it funnier. 'I don't think we'd be able to do it, anyway. We've always been like this, we have no idea who we'd be after. Maybe we'd be lonely. Maybe we'd be boring! Couldn't have that.'

'I know I for one would rather you do everything possible to prevent yourself from becoming boring.'

Hesper just turned another grin on her, then glanced at his parents. 'See?' he said, pointing at Charissa quick. A dip into their thoughts showed he was referring to when their parents had first brought up the idea of Hesper marrying Charissa, and had been a bit surprised with how they'd immediately agreed that would be fine — apparently, they weren't any more pleased with the idea of having to marry somebody than Charissa was. Or some _bodies_ in their case, she guessed.

Áine returned her son's grin with a crooked smile, shaking her head to herself.

And then Dad and Lady Gaunt (and Leuteris) were talking about boring political stuff. House Potter and House Gaunt weren't even _close_ to allies — closer to enemies, in fact — so them having some stuff to do with alliances and such to hash out was not unexpected. Nothing binding, really, but what could they agree on that would be binding? Politics didn't really work like that. They did agree to declare _ex amīcitiā pāx_ at the next session of the Wizengamot, but that didn't actually mean a whole lot. Just that they wouldn't directly interfere with each other too malevolently.

They were randomly going through the various arrangements they had with various families, making sure there wouldn't be _too_ many potentially contentious conflicts — while they didn't agree on virtually anything, Lady Gaunt was mostly only connected with the more reasonable Dark Houses, so nothing too serious came up — when something suddenly occurred to Charissa. She should probably mention that, as long as they were on the topic. It was rather important, and she thought she would be perfectly justified in asking for it.

The two other legilimens simultaneously glanced her way, Leuteris even cutting off in mid-sentence, obviously noticing she had something to say. Leaning back in his chair somewhat, raising an eyebrow at her slightly, Leuteris said, 'Yes, Charissa?'

'Have you been looking into arrangements for Alex yet?'

The four adult Gaunts glanced between each other quick, Hesper staring at her with an odd, considering expression, head somewhat cocked. After a couple seconds, Leuteris said, 'No, we haven't even really started looking. We were putting that off until next year or the year after. Honestly, we hadn't been planning on making arrangements for Hesper this early either.' Leaving unspoken the obvious implication that they were only doing this because she'd made known her preference for Hesper above Caelestis. 'Why?'

Charissa couldn't help raising an eyebrow at Leuteris for a second — she could feel the _far_ more experienced legilimens in her head, she knew he had to know what she was thinking. But she guessed there were only three of them in the room, they would have to have the conversation out loud for the benefit of everyone else. 'For this to work, I need a say in who Alex marries. I won't agree otherwise.'

Apparently, the other legilimens in the room _hadn't_ seen exactly what she'd been thinking. Everyone reacted with various shades of confusion and surprise, of course, but even Leuteris was blankly blinking at her, and Áine's mouth had dropped open, after a second saying, 'Now, really, I don't think—'

'Okay.'

Áine blinked, eyes turning a few degrees to Hesper. 'What?'

'We think that's reasonable. She can have that.' While the rest of the families were still giving each other weird looks — she noticed Dad and Mum looked particularly uncomfortable with the implications, though Mum was hiding it better — Hesper turned back to her, still brightly smiling. 'We don't have to formally agree on it. Even if it isn't in the contract, we'll remember. Alex won't consent to anything until you give your approval.'

She nodded. 'All right. Thanks.' It would have been _extremely_ awkward, considering Hesper and Alex didn't see themselves as separate people, if Alex ended up marrying someone Charissa couldn't tolerate. No matter how everyone else seemed to think it was an odd request, it just seemed appropriate to her, and luckily the twins agreed.

At least, _most_ everyone else seemed to think it was strange. She noticed at a glance Grandmother still just looked faintly amused with the whole situation, and Lady Gaunt was staring at her, eyes somewhat narrowed again. 'Never mind. You know _exactly_ what you're getting into, don't you.'

Charissa just smirked. Obviously. She wouldn't have even thought to consent if she weren't sure she understood what might come of it.

And of course, Hesper being Hesper, he couldn't leave the topic just obliquely hinted at. Face and voice the picture of innocence, he said, «We need special bed, very big, yes.»

It took her a second to realise that had been in Parseltongue. She couldn't help a quick glance at Dad, who was obviously _trying_ not to stare at Hesper like he'd pulled out a puppy and started hexing it or something. 'Could you _not_ do that in front of my father?'

Hesper stared at her for a moment, blinking slowly, all calm and inoffensively curious. 'I could, I guess. Would you rather I'd said that in English?'

Oh. Well. With how half the table had seemed incredibly uncomfortable with this a second ago, he wasn't wrong. 'Good point. Never mind.'

Charissa tried to ignore how all the Parselmouths in the room seemed to feel the need to smirk at her.

And then it was more uninteresting stuff, blah blah. The standard agreements between two Houses in the event of a marriage, really. One person being let go from one House, being accorded full membership in the new one, but retaining certain privileges related to their birth House which their partner then shared in, with only slight variations from the patrilineal version she was far more familiar with. Somewhat more complicated stuff to do with whatever belongings Hesper might bring to the House with him — at the moment, whatever he "owned" was technically property of House Gaunt, but anything he brought with him to House Potter wouldn't pass to her House, but would instead be considered in theory sort of both and neither, in practice Hesper's alone. Which was all basic stuff, the contract charmed onto a bit of parchment in the middle of the table, growing line by line as they verbally agreed to various details, not really different from the standard one someone could just walk into the Office of Records and buy a prepared copy of.

And then they transitioned into a topic that was making Charissa far more uncomfortable: children. It was a complicated subject, sure — Charissa and Hesper would both be Potters with lesser rights in House Gaunt, but those rights didn't automatically extend to whatever children they had. It wasn't hard to see both Houses might have vested interests in their children, interests that would by their very nature be in opposition.

Dad had insisted that their firstborn, since they would be the heir after Charissa, should be more Potter than anything else, any hold an outside House could have on him or her would be detrimental. After a bit of arguing Leuteris had acceded to the point, but then countered that in exchange they should be granted greater rights to the second, and third, or however many there ended up being. And then they were arguing particular details, incessantly, practically to the point of planning out a _schedule_. How often they would visit their Gaunt cousins, exactly what that visiting would look like, how they might alternate holidays to spend with one family or the other, what friendships they might arrange in families allied to one House or another, exactly how to go about agreeing on who was acceptable for them to associate with and who not, how to arrange going about certain sorts of events, and nonsense after nonsense after nonsense...

It didn't help that Hesper was annoying her. On purpose. For them to have children, of course, they would have to sex at some point. Hesper had decided he would use that idea to try to get some kind of reaction out of her. She wasn't sure exactly _which kind_ of reaction he was looking for, but definitely a reaction. He was just sitting there, smirking at her, randomly poking her every few seconds. Mostly along her arm, but a couple times slipping past to lightly jab at her side, which she glared at him for every time. Not that it did any good. And he was imagining shagging her the whole time. And, of course, he knew she was a legilimens, so he was perfectly aware she was seeing it. Imagining it quite explicitly and in plenty of detail. Quite accurate detail, she noticed, so far as what she actually looked like went — they had seen her naked any number of times, washing up after duelling practices over the previous year, so that wasn't that surprising, really. She wasn't entirely sure why, but she knew he was trying to get some kind of rise out of her. So, she very consciously forced herself not to react at all. Beyond the occasional glares, anyway.

How Leuteris and Áine kept throwing them amused looks really wasn't helping.

And she might have started off uncomfortable, but she was starting to get gradually more _annoyed_. Probably in part because Hesper just wouldn't stop prodding at her, but the topic itself wasn't doing her any good either. She didn't even want bloody children in the first place. She knew she would have to eventually, but... And here Dad and Leuteris and Lady Gaunt and Áine were planning out the next couple decades for her. _She was sitting right here_. Not only was she essentially being coerced into having children when the idea really held no appeal for her at all, but now they were even arranging how she'd go about it! No, no, this was stupid, she fucking _hated_ this.

As it just kept going, and going, and going, she was just getting angrier, and angrier, and _angrier_. Eventually, she was so thoroughly _annoyed_ , her fists clenched in her lap, her jaw so tense her teeth hurt, she felt her building rage escape the confines of her mind alone, slipping into her magic. With a sudden crack she thought might have even been audible, the sharp, simmering flames she always kept wreathed about her heart sprung away and into the air, abruptly roaring about her in a cold storm of fury, snapping at the enchantments in floor and chair and table surrounding her, she could barely hold them back from seriously damaging anything, gritting her teeth at the mental effort as she gripped her magic, forced it into something not entirely unlike obedience.

Oddly enough, no matter how much wearying concentration it took these first few seconds to stop objects being broken or people being hurt by her perhaps disproportionate fury given wings, she almost instantly felt better. A lot better. Magic was just like that. It was a warm, bubbling, giggling song in her head, and she couldn't help a grin coming to her face, suddenly feeling light and ecstatic and beautiful. Like she could simply float away if she wanted to, untethered to earth or duty, like she were so filled with energy and will and _possibility_ she could do literally anything she wanted, anything she desired, nothing was beyond her, like she were a being of light and grace and fire and violence, some inhuman perfection that would be equally at home in covetous dreams or horrific nightmares.

After only a few moments, the anger was mostly gone, and she took a few seconds just to bathe in the indulgent embrace of her magic. She should let it flow free like this more often. It felt _amazing_.

She was close enough to Hesper she could feel him shiver as the wave of untamed power washed over him. She was far enough in his mind she could easily tell it wasn't _at all_ an unpleasant shiver. Fascinating. For the shortest moment she was distracted by that.

But then she shook herself out of her distraction, focused back on her surroundings. To find odd mixed expressions of horror, satisfaction, and fascination on the faces around her. In her current state, she couldn't bring herself to really have an opinion about that — at least, other than a sort of smug glee, that they were looking at her like that because she was powerful, she was beautiful, she was something beyond them, and they _knew_ it. Which wasn't a thought she would ever say out loud, of course, it didn't seem appropriately modest, but it still pleased her. Her voice low and calm despite the ecstatic revelry in her head, she hissed, ' _Shut up.'_ She was momentarily worried she might have accidentally spoken in Parseltongue but, nope, okay, English, good.

For long seconds, everyone just stared at her, seemingly unsure what to say to that. Not seemingly, she _knew_ they were unsure what to say to that — she was in all their heads, even the ones that had been hidden from her before. Not that, in her present state, she could tell who was who too easily, or even where one mind ended and another began. A confusing mix, horror, adoration, avarice, shock, confusion, desire, curiosity, and she noticed consistent swatches of shame, which mollified her slightly. They realised they'd crossed a line, then. Good.

Eventually she noticed Mum's eyes on her. Steady and soft and pleading, urging her to bring herself back under control, to not let the thrumming song in her head carry her away. Okay. Fine. Charissa closed her eyes, took a long, deep breath, then shoved a block into the river of magic flowing through her, as hard and forcefully as she could. She knew she couldn't cut it off completely — for some reason, her magic refused to obey her in that way, she could never get it to work right. But the cloud of suffocating and enlivening power enveloping her noticeably weakened, the ecstasy taking over her mind rapidly fading away, returning her mostly to normal.

She took another moment to breathe. An excuse, perhaps, since mostly she was just giving everyone else a moment to recover. She knew what it was like to be stuck in the presence of too much power at once, it could be extremely disorienting.

Er, usually, anyway. She noticed Hesper had slunk somewhat closer to her over the last few moments, enough she could feel his arm and leg against hers. Okay, then...

She blinked, finally dragging herself back to the present moment. Her voice even and calm, she said, 'No. I reserve the right to make any decisions pertaining to whatever children I may or may not have as I see fit. Whether that is to your benefit,' she said with a light glare to the Gaunt side of the table, 'or to yours,' turning to Dad, 'will not even be a consideration. It will be my decision.' Belatedly, with a quick glance to Hesper, it occurred to her she probably should have been using plural pronouns there. Eh, oh well.

Everyone seemed to consider that for a second. Finally, Áine said, 'And how exactly will you be deciding?'

Charissa shrugged, and said the only thing she could really think to say. 'Whatever I determine to be in their best interests at the time.' A glance around, and nobody seemed exactly pleased with that — most resigned, Dad and Leuteris slightly resentful.

But, she didn't miss how Hesper next to her was almost squirming with glee, and Mum across the table was failing to hide a smug grin.

In the end, Áine let out a little sigh, then shrugged. 'All right. Fine with me.' A short moment, glancing between each other, and the Gaunts were agreed.

Which just meant she had to deal with— 'Charissa...' Dad started, his voice low and...she wasn't sure exactly. Disappointed? Disapproving? His mind was still blocked, she couldn't tell. Well, actually, she could probably power through his occlumency if she really wanted to, but she'd probably regret that afterward. If only because he'd be a pain about it.

But whatever he was thinking, she was having none of it. She was already bowing to his expectations far enough. She wasn't going to let him essentially plan out these kinds of details about her life for years to come. Simply no. 'Should we ever have a problem with that, go ahead and try to make me bend, if you feel you really must. But don't expect me to do what you want with my children just because you tell me to. I'm sorry, Dad, but that's simply the way it is.'

Dad didn't at all seem happy, but she guessed somewhat mollified. Even though she'd lied — she wasn't sorry even a little bit. But she hardly ever was, she was almost always lying when she said that, so she wouldn't expect herself to be.

Suddenly, Hesper next to her was moving, pulling away slightly only to snap back against her side, both arms wrapping around hers. Charissa forced down the automatic impulse to jinx him. His voice raised into an exaggerated whine, he said, 'Mu-uuum, can we keep her? _Please?'_

Áine's lips twitched with a repressed smile. 'That is what we're discussing right now, yes.'

Folding further into her, his face turning to press into her shoulder, he let out a short hum. 'Good, then.'

Charissa had to take a moment to suffocate the anger again flaring in her head, slowly breathing through her nose the way her mother had taught her forever ago. Finally, when she was mostly sure her voice would be level, she said, 'Could you let go of me.' It wasn't a question.

'Mm, no.'

She grit her teeth for a second, glaring down at the messy mop of black hair that was mostly all of him she could see from this angle. 'Don't make me curse you, Hesper.'

For some completely inexplicable reason, that just made Hesper laugh. Turning back to the table, he said, 'Oh, Mum, _please?'_ the word dragged out ludicrously long.

'Oh, get _off_ me, you—' Twisting her arm around a bit, pushing with both hands, and perhaps a bit of wandless magic, Charissa shoved Hesper off of her, forcing him back into his side of the chair, herself sliding all the way over to the armrest on her side. And she glared at him, hoping he would take the warning.

He obviously didn't. He sat there, his face drawn into a pout, eyes wide and bright. He brought up a hand, traced a finger along his cheek, as though following a tear sliding down his face. 'So mean, Cousin. I think I might cry.'

'You really think the tearful act is going to have any effect on me at all?'

He grinned. 'Nope. It just amuses us, is all.' And then, before she could barely react, he was springing over to her again, this time managing to loop his arms low around her waist, sliding in close against her.

Without even really thinking, Charissa was already drawing for her magic, planning to hex him, with something painful but not damaging, to get him to just stop bloody hanging off of her. She was an instant away from casting when she hesitated. In roughly three years or so, this annoying little prat was going to be her husband. She'd be stuck with him until he died — she would outlive him, of course, but that was still a long time. And, to be completely honest, the idea of being stuck with him wasn't _that_ distasteful. The twins could be a bit annoying sometimes, yes, she wouldn't even try to argue against that, but there were far worse people out there.

She _would_ have to learn how to deal with him in his more annoying moods eventually, so...might as well start now.

Letting out a long sigh, she slumped against the side of the chair, rubbing at her face with one hand. And trying as hard as she could to stop herself from grumbling under her breath.

The amusement she could feel glowing from all over the room _really_ didn't help.

The rest of the discussion went more or less smoothly. Charissa hardly had to participate at all, the next half hour moving calmly and easily. It looked like Dad and the Gaunts were growing gradually more comfortable with each other. She wondered how much the fact that she'd just thrown enough raw magic all over the room they'd _definitely_ felt it, then yelled at both families in equal measure, had to do with that. The whole time Hesper was snuggled into her side, which...was annoying, yes. But she figured the twins were going to be doing that a lot for, well, probably the next century or so. It would definitely be in her best interests to get used to it. She kept telling herself that, over and over in her head, whenever her skin started itching too much, whenever the urge to shove Hesper away or just bloody curse him reared its head, forcing herself to stay calm, to not let it bother her too much. She would just have to get used to it. It was no big deal. She could do that.

And she was sure he was entirely aware she was going to get back at him for this later somehow — the twins knew her well enough by now she couldn't imagine they didn't realise that. They would have made the conscious decision that whatever he got out of clinging to her like this would be worth what she would do to him later. So, no harm done.

Finally, after a couple hours sitting in this room, the contract was fully written up. After a slightly tense moment of Dad and Leuteris flatly staring at each other, Dad and Lady Gaunt both signed. Then the sheet of parchment was slid down the table, Hesper accepting the self-inking quill, signing his own name above his great-grandmother's. Then he passed it to Charissa, she brought the tip to the blank line just above Dad's name. And she hesitated.

She couldn't explain exactly why. She just...

She knew what signing this would mean. The instant she signed her name they would already be bound. Of course, the terms of the contract wouldn't be enforceable until they both publicly stated they wished them to be — from a legal standpoint, all the wedding itself did was acknowledge the previously-arranged agreement between Houses existed, and declared it in effect from that moment. Technically, there didn't even necessarily have to be a proper wedding, they could just publicly announce they wished to be considered wed and that would be that. The most meaningful part of the entire process, from a certain point of view, was her signing her name, right now.

And she didn't want to. She didn't. She didn't want any of this. She'd known this was what they were doing the whole time, of course, she'd known all this going in. And she knew she _had_ to do it. Eventually. But it just...

She felt it creeping up behind her, the crushing inevitability of her responsibilities to her House and society at large, and she...

She couldn't help it. It felt like being trapped. She _hated_ feeling trapped.

Biting her lip a little, she glanced up at the people around her. They could all tell something was wrong, yes, though by the confused looks Leuteris and Áine were wearing even they couldn't tell exactly what it was. Charissa took a couple breaths for a moment, gathering herself. She wasn't at all sure how well this would be received. 'Ah, can I...'

When the silence went on overlong, Leuteris raised an eyebrow at her. 'Yes?'

'Ah, _not_ sign this? Just this second, I mean.'

Most faces wore some expression of confusion or surprise, even the minds that weren't shielded showing variations on the same — though, she did notice the twins seemed faintly disappointed. All except Mum, anyway, he was giving her an understanding sort of grimace. Out of everyone here, Mum probably understood her best, so that wasn't unexpected. Eventually, Dad said, 'Is something wrong, Charissa?'

She didn't need to see into his head to know what he was thinking: he was wondering if Charissa was _really_ going to back out now, after doing this whole drawn-out thing, when Hesper had been her idea in the first place. 'I'm just not...' Charissa frowned to herself for a moment, trying to figure out how she could get her thoughts to make sense to someone who wasn't her. She turned to meet Leuteris's eyes. 'You know I'm in a Dark Arts apprenticeship with my mother.'

'Yes,' he said with a slight nod. That would be a matter of public record, of course, but Leuteris was even now remembering Mum first mentioning that to him. As part of one of her many rejections to his various offers to marry into his family, actually, she could see that much. It was rather strange how persistent Leuteris seemed to be about trying to get Mum to agree to marry his son, really, but Charissa was sure he had some reason that made sense to him. People like Leuteris always did.

'And, well, I'm thinking of going into duelling after Hogwarts. You know, professionally, for at least a few years.'

He nodded again. 'Filius mentioned that a couple times, yes.'

Charissa was temporarily distracted by that thought. She hadn't realised they knew each other, that Leuteris had asked Professor Flitwick about her. Or, perhaps, that Flitwick was talking about her to other people. Hmm. 'Well, I just... I need...more time to myself, I guess? I just don't want it to be, I don't know, so...solid. Yet. I will sign it later, I'm just not comfortable doing it right now.' Which she didn't think was unreasonable. She was only fifteen, and only by a few days at that. She didn't think it was unreasonable to not want her whole life set in stone already.

Well, not her whole life. Not that the Gaunts were aware of that — they had no way of knowing there was a good chance she'd outlive Hesper by millennia. But a century or so was still an enormous commitment in any case.

At least she was mostly sure they weren't aware. Two of them were legilimens, so it was possible, that was how Severus had figured out about it. But she hadn't been explicitly thinking about it, for the most part, and they never seemed to be paying that much attention to her mind anyway, judging by how she'd actually surprised them more than once. So, they probably didn't know.

Which was all to the good. Mum had said it would be best to keep that as secret as was feasible.

But anyway, Lady Gaunt and her son were turned to each other, faintly frowning, clearly trying to decide what to do about her request. Before they even came to a decision, Áine let out a light sigh, then reached forward, snatching the contract away from her. As the whole table watched, she started rolling the thing up, giving Charissa a slightly exasperated sort of look. 'I understand completely, Charissa. I am well familiar with the desire to be one's own woman.' She might have imagined it, it was so subtle, so brief, but she thought she caught Leuteris wince. 'Whenever you feel you're ready, just come to me.' With a few flicks of her wand, Áine conjured a long little wooden box, charmed it unbreakable and impermeable — the charms were cast silently, of course, but Charissa was mostly confident she correctly recognised the feel of them — then put the rolled-up contract inside. Then she closed the lid, shrunk it, and the thing vanished into her pocket.

Despite her audience, Charissa couldn't entirely restrain the urge to let out a relieved sigh. 'Thank you, Madam Gaunt.'

Externally, Áine just gave her a nod and a faint smile. Internally, she was shoving a memory into Charissa's view. Talking to a Ryan Selwyn, she was pretty sure that was Sorcha's father. He and Sorcha's mother had just been engaged, and Selwyn had been calling Áine "Miss Gaunt" — she had been significantly younger, and her father had still been the heir to their House instead of her at the time, so that had been technically appropriate. Áine had just glared at him, said something about how, since he planned on going around screwing her sister here, the least he could do was call her by her name. And she had been _exactly_ that blunt about it, Charissa barely managed to stop herself from smirking along.

But she nodded back, forcing a smile she didn't feel onto her face — not that she legitimately felt them that often, not the point. She got the message.

'Well,' Hesper said, voice turned into a somewhat breathy sigh. 'I'm still going to go around telling people we're engaged now, though. If that's okay.'

She turned to frown down at the top of his head, only a couple inches away from her face. 'Why?'

He leaned away from her shoulder, enough to meet her eyes. 'Bragging.' He said it flatly, his face a bit incredulous, as though that should have been immediately obvious to anyone who'd thought about it for two seconds. Their mind was filled with ecstatic giggles, though.

Charissa rolled her eyes. 'Fine, whatever. I don't care.'

At Hesper's brilliant, painfully smug grin, she could only sigh.

Before the day could be done, there was one more bit of ritual that had to be followed through. Everyone got up and were moving along, starting on a walk to the dining hall. They'd have dinner quick — well, not quick, to be honest, they'd probably drag talking for some hours — before the Gaunts all went home. But, they didn't all go to the hall together. The adults all went one way, the shorter path, while Charissa turned the opposite direction, leading Hesper through a longer, curving path through the hallways of the family wing.

He was attached to her arm the whole way, naturally.

She hadn't been entirely sure how her brothers were going to go about it. This was the last part of the whole process, see, the members of the House who hadn't been present in the room back there welcoming the future member in whatever way they saw fit. Technically, her aunt Elizabeth should too, but Charissa knew she wouldn't. To be completely honest, she hadn't put much thought into what her brothers would do. It didn't matter to her a whole lot. She should probably again reassure Perry she actually didn't mind Hesper, of all potential options, just to ensure he wouldn't start worrying about it again, but other than that she didn't see much how it should affect them. Or why she should care much how it did. As long as Perry wasn't worried she was miserable over it, anyway.

If she'd taken the opportunity to think about it, she wouldn't have expected Linden to try to hex Hesper in the back.

The instant she felt the charm coming, rocketing from a door slipping open a few seconds after they'd passed it, her magic was already surging up to bat the nuisance out of the air. But she needn't have bothered — Hesper dropped his hold on her arm, whirling around, wand falling into his hand, bringing a shield charm into existence before him with an easy, silent flourish. Linden's hex harmlessly splashed against it, dissipating into nothing. She was slightly impressed Hesper had reacted so quickly, but not particularly surprised. There was a reason she'd wanted the twins for her duelling team, after all.

Hesper eased his grip on his wand after an instant, the blue glow in the air vanishing, making the sight of Linden standing in the doorway far more clear. He looked slightly disappointed, obviously hoping he would have gotten to humiliate Hesper at least a little. 'Trying to hex me in the back, little Potter?' Hesper brought up his off hand, ticking his finger in the air with a light _tsk tsk_. 'That's not very Gryffindor-ish behaviour, now, is it?'

Charissa caught the distinctly annoyed expression crossing Linden's face, the memory of his Sorting flashing across his mind — well, Charissa hadn't been aware he'd almost gone to Slytherin too, should probably talk to him about that — and didn't even bother holding back her aggravated sigh. 'Hesper, do you really _have_ to go and taunt my brother at the very first opportunity?'

And Hesper turned a repeat of that expression on her, the one that said without saying that was _obvious_ , she really shouldn't need to ask.

She rolled her eyes again.

Perry then pushed out of the room they'd been hiding in, stepping around Linden only to shoot him a glare. 'Linden. Why didn't you tell me you were just going to try to hex him?'

Somewhat to Charissa's amusement, Linden turned a flat look on Perry that was remarkably similar to the one Hesper had just given her. 'Because you wouldn't have gone along with it.'

'You had to know it wouldn't have worked. Even if Hesper didn't block it, Charissa would have. And _she_ probably would have hexed you back.'

It was probably yet another sign she was a terrible person, but she couldn't help smiling a little at the flash of retroactive terror crossing Linden's mind. It _was_ mild, though, enough it wasn't even noticeable from the outside. 'Well, what would you have done, then?'

'Oh, I'm not sure. Introducing ourselves like normal people, maybe.'

'But, why? Where's the fun in that?'

'Why does it have to _be_ fun? We're just—'

And her brothers just kept bickering with each other. On and on, for some minutes, seemingly forgetting she and Hesper were there at all. If anything Hesper just seemed to think this was hilarious. Once the arguing had gone on for over a minute, with no sign of it even slowing down, Hesper leaned in a bit toward her again, muttered under his breath, 'You know, your family is kind of entertaining.'

Charissa had no idea at all how to respond to that.

* * *

Aimée — _In case you were wondering, this one of Hermione's cousins, the daughter of her father's half-brother Rémy, has been name-dropped before, in a single sentence back in chapter 25. Hermione sleepily noted she was passed out and drooling all over their grandmother's couch. Aimée's younger brother Théo, who is also muggleborn, also got a single mention. Sébastienne, of course, had several spoken lines._

Glanwvyl — _Roughly "_ _ **glah**_ _-nuh-vill" (IPA:_ /'glɑ̃.nə.βɨl/ _), from the Brīþwn words for "clean" (Welsh: glân) and "breeze" (Welsh: awel). Ashley was originally a boy's name, by the way, and is still primarily considered one in British use._

Inys Ðyvīl (IPA: /ɪ.nɨs.ðɨ.βyl/) — _Literally meaning "dark/shady island", Brīþwn name is a cognate of Welsh Ynys Dywyll, referring to the same location, which is now officially called Anglesey in English and Ynys Môn in Welsh. An island in the northwest of Wales, was considered a Druidic cultural center since Roman times, center of the native Celtic Kingdom of Gwynedd, which existed in one form or another until Edward I of England took over the place around 1283. In headcanon, location of the Wizengamot hall and primary administrative offices._

Áine — _Pronounced very similarly to Anya (IPA:_ /'a:.nʲə/ _). Áine really was a Gaelic goddess, but since pre-Christian mythology wasn't transmitted very well there is debate on what exactly she was a goddess of. (How figures from Celtic mythology tend to shift around as the story requires doesn't help.) Since the name literally means "radiant", I'm gonna go with the summer sun interpretation._

ex amīcitiā pāx — _Latin, lit. "peace out of friendship"_

* * *

 _You didn't think I'd named and described some of Hermione's French cousins for no reason, did you? For shame._

 _And, why, yes, the next chapter **is** going to be interesting. Should be a fun ride. Under a certain definition of fun._

 _Until next time,  
~Wings_


	35. Leverage

_Holy crap. I meant to have this chapter on time, and I would have if it were an ordinary length. I had, what 12-13k words by Friday night? But the thing just. wouldn't. end! It just kept going and going! I'm starting to think I need to rework how I block out chapters, because this is getting ridiculous..._

* * *

 _August 11th, 1995_

* * *

Stepping into the shop slightly ahead of her, Ted said, 'So, what were you thinking of getting?'

Bella followed him in, the summer sun instantly shut away, the environmental enchantments on the building turning the air cool enough she almost shivered. Rather extreme difference, far more than most people did on their homes or businesses, but she guessed this particular place had reason for it — there was a very faint smell of filth on the air filled with various shufflings and squawkings, she supposed a lower temperature kept it from getting too bad. 'I don't know, really. Maybe something will jump out at me.' Perhaps literally, she thought, looking around the darkened room layered in stacked cages and tanks, filled with animals of all sorts. They looked solid enough, and nothing was running around free, but...

'And you don't want an owl.' It wasn't a question, really, but there was still a very obvious note of doubt on her adoptive father's voice.

Bella tried not to be annoyed — she'd explained her reasoning on that more than once. When it'd come time to do her shopping and such for her first year at Hogwarts, she hadn't really been in a place she could get any sort of pet at all. Bridget wasn't the most financially secure person in existence, so covering her school supplies had been a bit iffy to begin with, and she'd been too busy with other things going on, so it hadn't even bothered her that much. Not to mention she'd been used to not being able to afford things. Sometimes it still struck her as odd, being able to have nice things, and she'd already been with the Blacks for a year and a half now.

But now that things were more stable, her life wasn't being constantly turned on its head every few weeks... Well, she was curious. Charissa had explained to her about Augí being her familiar, and just what familiars were, and Bella had read up about it on her own. The whole idea was fascinating. She'd even found a ritual to form a familiar bond overnight — familiar bonds rarely developed on their own, usually just with certain species and especially powerful mages, so people had long ago developed ways to induce it artificially. Since she actually had money now, and her life was somewhat less insane, she'd decided she simply must try it for herself.

And no, Ted, she wasn't getting a bloody owl. Why would she? She meant, if she saw an owl that caught her attention, sure, but she didn't see any reason she should prioritise owls above any other kind of animal, as everyone seemed to expect her to want. Sure, they were useful, but everyone _knew_ they were useful, so there were already plenty around. And she hardly ever had use for owls as it was. If she had to write someone she could just use one of the family owls. Not that she hardly ever did, if she wanted to talk to someone she just popped through the floo to visit them in person. When she was away at school, she did write Andi and Ted rather regularly — she'd gotten into the habit in first year, before she'd ever met them, originally just introducing herself and getting to know them, and she'd never stopped — but she could just borrow a Hogwarts owl then. She didn't see much point to having an owl of her own.

But, well, by this point, with a few exceptions, she'd mostly ceased expecting mages to be entirely rational.

She didn't bother addressing the not-question, just started wandering around the store. All kinds of things all over the place. Rodents and canines and felines of innumerable varieties, some mundane and some magical. Bella was temporarily distracted by an employee of some sort coming over, and then temporarily amused by how Ted sent him scurrying away. It could be easy to forget to take Ted seriously sometimes. He was hardly intimidating. Rather short for a man, with a slight paunch, his rounded face constantly warm and smiling, voice bright and cheerful. It wasn't at all hard to believe he'd been a Hufflepuff.

But, then, so had Dora, and she would think everyone should know by now not to underestimate her. It wasn't obvious with Ted very often, but sometimes venom would slip into his smile, honey into his tone, and she would know she should pay attention or she might miss it. Bella had learned by now Ted was devilishly smart — he would have to be, to become qualified as a solicitor in _both_ muggle and magical Britain as young as he had — and could talk circles around people without them even realising what was happening. Like, just now, he'd sent the shopkeeper scurrying away in fear he'd offended them by implying they couldn't tell well enough on their own which animals were which, as though they were in fucking nursery school, perhaps they'd have to take their business somewhere they'd be treated like adults. Not that Ted had said anything quite that direct, of course not, that would be rude. The implication had been obvious, though.

Bella turned in time to catch the smug smirk on his face as he watched the man's retreating back. Yes, when she had time to think about it, she was not at all surprised Andi had gone so far as to leave her family for him.

Not to mention, she'd now twice met the Yaxley Andi's parents had apparently wanted her to marry. Yeah, not impressed.

For a moment, Bella stalled in one aisle, looking between the various cats in their cages. The Iya in particular, they had a couple — not many, of course, the breed were rather rare. After a bit of looking, though, she shook her head to herself and started off. None had really jumped out at her, and it'd be a bit silly to do the ritual she had in mind with an Iya of all things. Not to mention she didn't particularly like cats. She didn't mind Augí, but he was unusually intelligent even for a familiar — she'd once had a completely coherent conversation with him through mind magic, which was one of the oddest experiences of her life. The same thing was unlikely to happen for her even with the ritual, since she was so much less powerful than Charissa. She was pretty sure that's why that'd happened with Augí, anyway, just because Charissa was Charissa. If she was going to have a familiar, she'd rather it be a more intelligent one, preferably one she could actually...

Bella froze in the middle of an aisle flanked with twittering songbirds in their cages, blinking to herself. Well, that would be the obvious thing to do, wouldn't it?

Soon she was standing at the end of another aisle, staring down lines of tanks almost glowing with a variety of enchantments. Feeling the smirk on her face, she called out, «Hello there, pretties.» For a second, she smiled when she felt Ted behind her tense at the Parseltongue, but then she winced at the draw on her magic. She felt it happening, little flickers of energy stretching out to all the dozens of snakes on display, binding itself into their primitive minds, constructing some basic facsimile of intelligence. Should one stay around her long enough it would likely become self-sustaining, and the familiar binding ritual she'd found should significantly strengthen it, but until then she'd have to power the magic herself. She had experimented with it before, of course, but she'd never done this with so many snakes at once. Took more out of her than she'd expected.

Shaking her head to herself a little, she started making her way down the aisle, stopping to chat with a snake here and there at random. Whether it was part of the whole Parselmouth animating magic thing, or just the way they naturally were, she couldn't help being faintly amused with the sort of personalities snakes had. They had to be the most prideful things she'd ever spoken to. Not in the swaggering sort of way some people had, where they were clearly trying to advertise how great they were, some big performance. No, snakes knew they were beautiful and dangerous, and they simply expected everyone around them knew this, to adore them even while respecting them for the potential threat they posed. It was very matter-of-fact to them, just the way reality was. She did tend to play along, mostly because she thought it was funny. Silly little things.

Sort of reminded her of Charissa sometimes, actually, though it wasn't quite the same. Snakes seemed to like it when you played up how great they were, squirming in clear delight with each compliment. They wouldn't seem surprised — might say something like «Yes, that is true,» or «You are a wise girl,» something like that — but it clearly pleased them, stroked their disproportionate little egos. Charissa was much the same in that she _knew_ she was absurdly powerful, she _knew_ she was attractive. From what Bella could tell, she fully expected people to be wary around her, afraid she might randomly curse them for no good reason, while simultaneously expecting people to be secretly lusting after her. Or, not so secretly, she guessed, being a legilimens and all. It was just the way things were, to here. But Charissa didn't take compliments the same way these snakes did — or even how normal people did, for that matter. She hardly seemed to react at all, beyond a simple acknowledgement that yes, that was true, or a quick, dismissive thank you. More than once, Bella had actually seen Charissa grow subtly annoyed with people flattering her, but obviously doing her best to hide it, to keep up that silly pureblood social propriety nonsense. She just didn't seem to care.

Bella never had known what to think about that. But she'd learned to accept by now Charissa was just strange, and roll with it.

Bella stopped flat in front of another tank, staring at the latest resident. She probably would have barely noticed it before. It was a little thing, probably a bit shorter than a foot, barely the width of her thumb. Because it was still young, she could tell, though she wasn't entirely sure _how_ she could tell — Parselmouth stuff, she assumed. There was nothing too special about it, curled up there about a rock enchanted with a mild heating charm, not even acknowledging her. Bella probably wouldn't even have noticed it if she hadn't been thinking of Charissa as she saw it.

Its scales — a deep, vibrant green, with little flecks here and there of black and amber — were the exact colour of her eyes.

«Well, aren't you lovely.»

The little snake slipped about its rock a little, the head coming around to rest on top, tilted to the side somewhat to bring one beady little eye on her. «You sound surprised, human girl.»

Bella blinked at the feel of the Parseltongue. The snake was female, of course, she picked that up instantly — she wasn't entirely sure how to describe the difference between a masculine and feminine snake voice, but she always knew. But its response felt...deeper, thicker, somehow more solid. Must be a magical breed of snake, then. They took to Parselmouth magic much better than ordinary ones, sometimes had some independent intelligence of their own to build on. «Only surprised as a matter of degree, I assure you. I expected beauty, yes, but perhaps not so much of it.»

The snake preened a little, squirming tighter against the rock in evident pleasure. «You can't be expected to be perfect.»

Bella felt her lips twitch. «Well, we can't all be serpents, can we? I am only human.»

The snake let out a long, thin, stuttering hiss — Parseltongue equivalent of chuckling under her breath, Bella assumed. «Unfortunately, no. But you do your best, I'm sure. You do smell powerful.»

She couldn't help smirking a little. Silly thing. Bella glanced at the little sign attached to the tank, and felt her eyes widen. It was an Asian tree snake, a phoenix-viper. It didn't eat _actual_ phoenixes of course, just the magical bird native to the East that was usually _called_ a Chinese Phoenix, despite not being anything like one. Well, mostly not like one — they did have similar abilities with fire magics, and looked sort of similar, but they were far less intelligent, and didn't have the healing abilities or effective immortality real phoenixes did. Similar enough they were thought to be distant relatives, sort of like what chimpanzees were to humans, but not really the same thing.

This species of snake, though, was far more commonly known as sorcerer's bane. Its venom wasn't actually deadly — excluding the occasional allergic reaction, a muggle probably wouldn't even notice. What the venom _did_ do was temporarily block a living thing's ability to use any sort of magic. This was very useful in the wild, turning often dangerous and elusive magical birds entirely helpless with a single bite. But it worked on human mages too, entirely stripping all ability to cast any magic at all for a span of usually a few hours. The primary active ingredient in dampening potions was, in fact, the venom of a phoenix-viper.

So, the things weren't immediately deadly, no. But the idea of having all ability to use magic temporarily blocked was a whole different kind of terrifying. «Oh, you are a dangerous little thing, aren't you.»

The snake let out another little hiss. «Only if you make me angry.»

Bella felt her lips twitch into a smirk again. A bloody snake was teasing her, being magic was so ridiculous sometimes. «Do you like it here, little one?»

She seemed to think about that for a moment, slitted eyes slowly blinking. «It is warm, and safe. We are always well-fed.» The snake shifted about a bit, the motion giving her the impression of a shrug. «But it is a prison. I don't like being kept in a box. It's boring, nothing ever changes.»

«No, I can't imagine that would be fun.» She really had to wonder, sometimes, how people thought it could possibly be appropriate to keep the more intelligent magical creatures in cages. As soon as she left, these snakes would all return to being simple animals, true, but that wasn't true of everything in here. And every time she caught sight of a _post owl_ , of all things, in one of those tiny little carrying cages she couldn't help wincing in sympathy. They really didn't belong there. At least Augí was never forced into that kind of thing. Not that she thought most were warded in a way that could actually keep him there. «Would you like to come with me instead?»

Tone slightly suspicious, the little snake hissed, «Would you put me in another box?»

«No, no,» she said, putting her voice low and serious, «I wouldn't dream of doing such a careless thing to such a noble creature as you.» She waited a moment, smiling to herself, for the little snake to finish its preening again. «I would ask you not to bite anything without my permission, but so long as you don't hurt anyone, you are free to go as you wish. I'd even let you go out and hunt on your own, so long as you don't eat anything that belongs to anyone.»

A very short pause. «That sounds nice.»

Bella nodded, turned to Ted. 'You mind go and finding that clerk again?'

Giving her a very displeased look, he said, 'An Asian phoenix-hunter? _Really?'_ Bella just stared back at him. After a short moment, Ted's eyes tipped up to the ceiling, letting out an exasperated sigh. Then he turned and walked off, shaking his head to himself and muttering under his breath — the only parts she caught were something about what he put up with and '...bloody Parselmouths...'

Not even bothering to fight a crooked grin, Bella turned back to the tank. After a bit of feeling around, she found the latch to the lid, soon had it sliding back. She didn't have to tell the little thing twice: the second she had her hand inside, the snake was sliding over her fingers, coiling up on the top of her hand. Once enough of her length was on Bella's hand she was sure she wouldn't fall off, she brought her hand out of the tank, the tiny viper letting out a gleeful hiss as she was lifted through the air. She brought her hand closer to her face, the snake's head within a few inches of her nose. «You stay with me and we'll have plenty of fun, I promise.»

«You really think you can entertain me, little human?» The snake was just teasing again, she could tell, a faint sense of irony about her voice. Not that Bella could say how she knew that.

Her grin tilting even wider, she lifted her other hand. With a little force of effort, she drew a bit of magic up from her centre, as Charissa had taught her, flung it out into her hand. She couldn't do very many charms yet, no, but she had the basic idea down, it only took a moment for her magic to come boiling up to the surface, the air just a bit thicker with it, blue-purple sparks shooting between her fingers. «Oh, I think I might be able to show you a _few_ interesting things.»

The young viper let out another pleased hiss, tail tightening about Bella's thumb a little. «I knew you smelled powerful. You will feed me, you will adore me, and you will entertain me. Yes?»

«Yes.» Bella shook her head to herself. Silly thing.

«Good, then.»

'No, what are you doing!' She glanced up to find the man from before running up to her, his wand already out and pointed in her direction — her fingers twitched for her own, just barely stopping herself from instinctively drawing it and cursing him first. What was he thinking, just waving his wand at people like that? Idiot. He stopped a fair distance away from her, eyes steady on the snake in her hand. 'Just, it's okay, move slowly, you don't want to startle him.'

Bella nearly corrected him — this snake was definitely female — but instead she frowned up at the taller, older man, her face falling into a glare with natural ease. 'What the hell are you talking about?'

He blinked, lost in surprise for a short second. 'Er, I mean, you shouldn't be taking venomous snakes out of their wards without protection, Miss, ah...'

'Bellatrix Black.'

The man's eyes widened, flicked down to take in her honestly a bit overly fine summer robes (she still felt slightly odd wearing expensive things), his face abruptly paling even further than it had already as he reached the obvious conclusion. Bella just smirked — all this House Black nonsense had been ridiculous and often annoying at first but, she had to admit, she got a kick out of how people reacted to her name these days. She probably shouldn't find funny some mages' entirely irrational fear of her family, but she just couldn't help it. 'Ah, I, I, my apologies, Miss Black, but I don't think, er...'

«Which one of us is he scared of?» the little phoenix-viper hissed, a faint tone of sadistic amusement carried on her voice. «I really can't tell.»

«At first, just you, but now I think it's both of us.» The man's face went even paler at her use of Parseltongue, almost ghost-white at this point, Bella's smirk just twitching wider. 'I assure you, sir, I am in no danger from this lovely little girl here. I'll be taking her.'

For long moments, the man just stared, eyes flicking between her and the viper, mouth silently working. Eventually, though, he got control back over himself, colour returning to his face, the twitches trailing off. Finally he cleared his throat, visibly shook himself. 'Right. Ah, Miss, if you'll come over here, we can look at—'

'No.' He jerked halfway through turning around, looking at her over his shoulder. Bella smiled, straightened her arm out a bit. «You can climb, I assume.» With no further cue, letting out a long hiss of laughter, the young viper started moving, slipping under her sleeve to slide up her arm. As she curled around her elbow, tiny dry scratches starting up her forearm, Bella shifted in place, a completely unwanted giggle clawing at her throat. «That tickles.»

«That must be annoying.» Bella snorted. Coming to rest over her shoulder, the snake said, «I won't move too much. You're warm. Just don't squish me.»

Smiling to herself a little, Bella turned back to the man, who now had a very clear look of half-terrified disgust on his face. Ted just behind him didn't look any more pleased, actually, but he at least didn't seem entirely surprised, a hint of resigned annoyance about him. 'I won't be needing a tank or anything. Just the snake.'

The shopkeeper rushed them up to the counter to pay, for all the world looking like he were trying to get her out of the store as quickly as humanly possible. Bella barely managed to stop herself from laughing at him.

The snake at her shoulder, head narrowly peeking out the neck of her robes, didn't even bother.

* * *

 _August 14th, 1995_

* * *

That somewhat surly expression on Hermione's face, lip slightly curled, still hadn't budged an inch, her eyes narrowed on the Ravenclaw prefect badge sitting on the table in the library. 'I guess you maybe have a point.'

Charissa couldn't help smiling at that a little. She hardly ever got Hermione to admit she was wrong about anything. Even if Hermione _did_ realise she'd been mistaken, or misinformed or whatever, she would quietly change her position in mid-argument, seemingly hoping no one would notice. She hardly ever admitted flat-out she was wrong about anything, especially when it was something about her own character. True, it wasn't just her, she'd had a couple letters from Flitwick explaining his reasoning, but still.

She considered teasing Hermione, saying something about how _that_ must have hurt, she could take a moment to recover if she liked. But that would be far more cruel than entirely necessary, she dismissed the thought after a second.

Instead, she tried to turn her smile as soft and gentle as she could, giving a little shrug. 'You know Flitwick thinks the world of you, Hermione. You're his favourite student since my mum, he even talks about you to people all the time.' Hermione's eyes widened a little — apparently she hadn't known that. 'He would rather you be happy, and have more time to focus on your studies, than be prefect.'

'And he doesn't want you to be happy, then?'

Charissa's lips twitched at that. Probably wouldn't be a great idea to point out she wasn't entirely sure what "happy" was supposed to feel like in any case. 'I can deal with the pressures of the position better than you can. Whatever they think of me doesn't particularly bother me, that makes it a whole lot easier. That and, well, people are a bit scared of me. People are far more likely to listen to me, if only to avoid the possibility of making me annoyed.'

Hermione didn't even attempt to argue that point. On one of the occasions Hermione had let Charissa into her thoughts — she didn't keep her occlumency down constantly, but it did happen sometimes — she had caught her thinking about how most people seemed to talk to Charissa like they were staring down a live dragon. And Hermione was regularly shagging that dragon, a thought that had been wrapped up with a kind of dark amusement.

Of course, not _only_ dark amusement. Though it wasn't often clear from what she said or how she acted, it was very, very obvious in Hermione's thoughts that she was rather emotionally...attached to Charissa these days, she guessed was the way to put it. Sometimes Charissa witnessed her head going all...warm, and soft, and squishy, it was odd and uncomfortable. Uncomfortable to imagine putting herself in the same place, anyway, she couldn't imagine ever allowing herself to become that vulnerable. Even if she had the capacity to feel for anyone or anything that way, and to be honest she simply didn't think she did, she'd probably try to avoid it on principle.

But anyway, Hermione let out a short sigh, shaking her head to herself a little. 'Yes, yes, it makes sense. I just wish either you or Flitwick would have told me ahead of time, is all.'

Well, yes, she hadn't done that, that was true. But Flitwick hadn't either, so that wasn't entirely her mistake, there. It just hadn't really occurred to her to talk to Hermione about it. It would have come up eventually on its own, and they would talk about it then. And it was outside of both of their control, so she hadn't seen much point in discussing it. But she was very well aware that what she saw as relevant would quite likely not match up perfectly with the feelings of anyone else, so she apologised anyway.

'It's fine, don't worry about it,' Hermione said with a dismissive shake of her head, turning her face back into a book on enchanting taken from the shelves a bit ago. Hermione had been getting into enchanting lately, not a surprise. 'Just, you know. I'd rather you tell me things when they come up. This wasn't a huge deal but, you know, for future reference.'

Charissa automatically nodded, then frowned. That wasn't an entirely unreasonable request, when she thought about it, for Hermione to be informed about the things happening in her life that didn't directly involve her. Considering their relationship, things that didn't _directly_ involve Hermione still did indirectly, in a way. And, well, _she_ would certainly want to be informed about major shite going on in Hermione's life, but it hadn't really occurred to her the feeling would be reciprocated. Even before she'd been made entirely aware just how different she was, she'd had opportunity to learn she could be a bit overly territorial of the few things and people she actually cared about, more than most other people — that incident with Pansy over Mum, the one with Draco over Hermione, yeah, she'd noticed. She'd assumed it was just an extension of that. She hadn't thought it would be a normal person thing. And, well, it wasn't like telling Hermione about it would have made any difference. It would have gone the same way no matter what, but...maybe she should have?

She closed her eyes for a moment, resisted the urge to rub at her forehead. She should really stop making assumptions. It never did turn out very well.

'Come to think of it, I think I have something else I probably should have told you about.'

Hermione turned away from her book again, blinking over at her. 'Oh?'

'Yeah. A couple days ago, my family settled on an arrangement with another concerning one of their sons.'

For a short moment, Hermione just frowned at her. Very clearly confused, Charissa didn't need legilimency to tell her that. Then her eyes widened, her thick enchanting text, propped up somewhat against the edge, falling flat against the table with a heavy thud. Her voice thick and hot, she hissed, 'Wait, _what?_ Are you... Are you trying to tell me you're _engaged?'_

Charissa blinked. 'Well, yeah.' To be completely honest, she would have thought Hermione had guessed that. Perhaps not that an official arrangement had already been made, but she _was_ fifteen now. Noble Houses almost always did it at fifteen. She was positive Hermione had been told that at some point.

'I don't—' Hermione broke off, leaned her elbows against the table, both hands rubbing at her face. Her expression was hidden by her hands, but Charissa could feel the harsh shuddering of some kind of emotion behind her occlumency. Couldn't tell exactly what, but definitely feelings of some kind. It took her a moment to find words again, but even then she didn't remove her hands from her face, her clearly unsteady voice somewhat muffled. 'Who is it, then?'

'Hesper.'

'Hesper _Gaunt?'_ Charissa flinched at the sharp heat in her tone — she was well aware Hermione didn't like the twins, she'd known ahead of time Hermione would probably make an issue of it. 'Out of all the people you could have possibly picked, did it _really_ have to be _Hesper bloody Gaunt?!'_

Charissa shrugged. No matter how annoying the Gaunts could be sometimes, Hesper was still the least unpalatable possibility she'd been able to come up with. The least likely to be too overly annoying, and the most likely to be consistently entertaining. Well, with the notable exception of Neville, anyway, not the point. She'd mostly kept it to herself, true, but she was actually rather pleased with how it'd turned out, could have been much worse.

Of course, she likely wouldn't say the same if marrying a woman were a viable option. But it wasn't, so her choices were limited to begin with.

She almost automatically opened her mouth to explain that, but sharply cut herself off at the last second. That would probably be considered tactless. She scrambled for a moment to think of something that wouldn't be too hurtful to say, uncomfortably aware the effort was likely doomed to failure no matter what she did. Well, outside of casting some sort of magic on Hermione, anyway, but that had its own problems. 'I didn't have a whole lot of choice in the matter. Some of the people my father suggested, I'm not sure I would be able to live with them for long without getting entirely sick of them. Hesper was the least annoying of the options Dad would consent to. If I didn't have to I probably wouldn't be getting married at all, and if my potential choices weren't restricted I would have picked someone else.'

'Like who?'

Once again, Charissa barely stopped herself from answering truthfully — she'd been being honest with Mum far too much these days, it was eroding her reflex to tactfully lie. She'd have to work on that. 'Well, you, most likely. You're not an option, however. It's currently not legally possible, and even if that were to change in the near future our peers would never accept it as legitimate in any case.'

'I can't...' After another moment of silence, Hermione hardly moving save for slightly harsh breaths. Charissa was somewhat impressed, actually. It was clear Hermione was having some rather pronounced emotional response to this — not that Charissa knew why or what, but she could tell by how she was holding herself. It was obviously a rather strong response. Intense emotions tended to interfere with a person's occlumency, but if anything Hermione's was suddenly _better_ than usual, her mind black and slick and solid. She'd always known Hermione could summon significant force of will when she really wanted to, she wouldn't be as good with magic as she was otherwise, but it was still impressive.

Charissa could still slip her way through it if she chose, of course. Hermione's occlumency was good enough to prevent Charissa from incidentally picking up things, the way she had these days of wandering into unguarded minds without really even meaning to, but she seriously doubted Hermione was good enough yet to keep her out if Charissa were to make anything like a concerted effort. She suspected it wouldn't even be difficult, just a matter of properly focusing. To be completely honest, that was a large part of what made it so tempting — it wouldn't be hard at all to see what was going on in there, and she was almost incessantly curious, it would be so easy, but she _knew_ Hermione would hate it, so she restrained herself. It was frustrating.

Whatever Hermione was doing with her occlumency was apparently having physical effects too. After a few seconds, her breathing had mostly gone level again, she seemed far more calm. Externally, anyway — when she turned back to face Charissa, her eyes were noticeably watery. Charissa barely managed to hold back a wince. 'This is bloody ridiculous, you know that.' Her voice was _mostly_ level, just a slight hard thickness that wouldn't normally be there, like her throat were partially blocked. 'This must have taken weeks to set up, and you're only telling me about it now.'

Charissa shrugged a little. 'What would have been the point? There was nothing you could have done about it either way. It didn't really occur to me to bring it up until now.'

There wasn't anything particularly bad about what she'd just said, so far as Charissa was concerned. It was the truth, for one thing — it simply _hadn't_ occurred to her to tell Hermione about it. Possibly because she was in the habit of not mentioning the other people she was shagging if she could help it, the arrangement with Hesper being thematically similar, but even without that. It was House Potter business, and she couldn't count how many times she'd been told growing up House business was to stay within the House, unless there was some pressing reason to disclose it to someone outside the family. Especially before the arrangement had been official, Charissa wasn't supposed to be blabbing about that kind of thing until after it was settled. Some not insignificant part of her was convinced Hermione, not being a Potter, quite simply wasn't entitled to the information. In retrospect, most people would probably consider her girlfriend an exception to the rule, but it hadn't occurred to her to contemplate one way or the other until just now.

And what was telling Hermione supposed to accomplish, anyway? She was going to have to get married one way or the other. Since _she_ didn't have a choice in the matter, Hermione _certainly_ didn't. Hermione had no tenable claim over her at all. In fact, the Gaunts could have demanded some sort of fidelity or modesty clause, and Charissa would have been obligated to end their relationship — Hesper knew her well enough to not request such a thing, and considering the Gaunts' personalities and politics she'd been certain it wouldn't come up in any case, but the point stood. Technically, she and Hermione could only do what they'd been doing because her father, and now Hesper, permitted it. (And possibly Emma, come to think of it, she'd have to look up the specifics.)

Not that she was entirely certain Hermione realised that. The, frankly, often self-righteous muggleborn had never developed a perfect understanding of how Houses interacted on a day-to-day basis, far as she could tell. When Hermione had still been a client of her House it had been different, true, but she was a Cherwell now, a full member of an independent Common House. The legal peculiarities of their situation had changed, and Charissa wasn't sure Hermione even knew it.

And, well, to be perfectly honest...it had just never occurred to her to even think about. When she was with Hermione, she was thinking Hermione things. Distracted by the usual things they talked about or did together, her developing marriage arrangements simply hadn't been on her mind at all. Since she'd seen no particular reason to go out of her way to inform her, and nothing had brought it up in her presence, she'd never had cause to mention it to Hermione. She just didn't think it was all that important.

By Hermione's reaction, she obviously didn't agree.

Face clenching in a tight glare of some kind, her voice shifting halfway to a snarl, she said, 'What wou— What would have been _the point?!'_ Before Charissa could hardly blink, Hermione was jumping to her feet — there was a heavy thump, the table rattling, she must have hit her knee. By the slight limp Hermione moved with as she started pacing to the window, breaths thick and shoulders tense and fists shaking with what looked very much like rage she was desperately trying to control, it probably hurt quite a bit. Without even thinking, Charissa had her acacia wand in her hand, silently shot off a healing charm to take care of it.

Even as the charm landed, Hermione whirled on her heel, hair snapping about her. Her wand came up to point right at Charissa's head with impressive suddenness, considering Hermione didn't really duel at all. For a second, Charissa could only blink in surprise at the look of half-fury half-fear on Hermione's face, confusion slowly eating in at the edges. Ah, she thought she understood: Hermione had felt the magic coming in at her, but hadn't recognised it, for some reason thinking Charissa was...she didn't know, cursing her with something, hence the fury and fear. But then it'd only healed the fresh bruise on her leg, hence the confusion. Charissa wasn't sure what to think of Hermione so easily jumping to the conclusion Charissa would hurt her, but this wasn't really the time to think about that too much. Forcing her face as blank as possible, Charissa let her wand retreat back into her holster, raised both empty hands a little in surrender.

Not that she actually needed a wand to harm or compel Hermione at this point — Mum's lessons in wandless magic were far better than trying to figure it out on her own. Which Hermione was fully aware of. But it was the symbolism of the thing.

Hermione's wand was steady on her for a few long seconds, still glaring, but then she visibly relaxed, eyes turning away and wand hand falling. She took a few more moments to breathe, obviously trying to keep herself calm, with what looked like only partial success. Charissa didn't know how she could possibly help, so she just sat and silently waited. Finally, resolutely staring out the window instead of looking at Charissa, Hermione said, ' _The point_. I guess _the point_ would be not springing this on me out of absolutely nowhere. Some warning before breaking up with me to go marry some prat would have been nice, is all.'

Charissa blinked. 'Why would I break up with you?'

'I...' Turning to look over her shoulder, the look of absolute confusion Hermione was giving her was so thick it was almost comical. 'What? I mean, with...you know, being engaged and all...'

'What does that have to do with us?'

For long, silent seconds, Hermione just stared at her, seemingly not even breathing. 'I... How does you being engaged to someone else _not_...' Hermione let out a long sigh, her fingers raising to slip through her hair. They only made it a couple inches before getting stuck — by the feel of the air, Hermione was leaking magic a bit in her agitation, her hair was visibly frizzing from it — and it took a few seconds before Hermione could free her hands again, giving her own hair a frustrated glare. She finally said, 'I don't understand.'

'It makes no difference,' Charissa said with another little shrug. 'My arrangement with Hesper, I mean. I talked to him about it, and he understands I'm only marrying him to meet societal obligations, and that I'm not inclined to change my behaviour out of consideration for him at all. Really, he should know me well enough by now not to expect me to. We've come to an agreement on the matter.'

'So, you're telling me—' Charissa couldn't help another jerk of surprise when she saw the rage crossing Hermione's face again. Where had _that_ come from? She hadn't said anything bad, had she? She hadn't noticed anything... '—that you got _your fiancé's permission_ to keep seeing me?'

Er, that didn't sound good... 'Well, to be honest, it would probably be more accurate to say I was telling him I was going to, not asking permission. But I guess you could put it that way. It is technically within his rights to refuse, it just wouldn't have been very smart of him.'

' _Within his—'_ Hermione broke off, turning away with a shockingly loud, furious snarl. She stalked away up to the window, leaning with both hands against the frame, once again clearly taking a moment to control herself.

Charissa did give her a moment, but...she couldn't help it. She had to say it eventually, she couldn't hold it in very long. 'I'm aware that this might sound...I don't know, insensitive or something, but... You had to know this was going to happen eventually. You've had enough exposure to the way things go in Noble Houses you would have figured it out on your own. And I'm not, I don't know...' Charissa let out a sigh, rubbing at her forehead. Why did this shite have to be so weird and complicated? 'It's not like I'm suddenly casting you aside or anything. The marriage with Hesper is something that _will_ happen, not _has_ happened. Probably not until a couple years after we graduate. And I know you don't really like him, and I expected you to not be comfortable with the idea. I just... I don't understand why you're angry with me. I don't know what I did wrong, or what I should be saying here to fix it.'

Hermione's immediate reaction to that was not at all what Charissa would have expected: she laughed. Not nice-sounding laughter, true. It came out sudden and sharp, as though shocked out of her, all thick and tense and hot. Charissa wasn't sure what to think about it. 'I almost can't believe you actually just said that.'

'Er, I don't—'

'No, shut up.' Oh, wow, okay. Hermione moved away from the window and back for her bag at the table, somewhat shakily returning her books and such back to their places. And still not looking at her, Charissa noticed. 'I can't— I just can't talk to you right now. I need to, to think.'

'About what?'

Hermione shot her a short glare, wordlessly saying that should be bloody well obvious — which was entirely unhelpful, that had been a legitimate question, Charissa didn't understand what was going on. Then, with another snort of black laughter and a shake of her head, she was walking out. Charissa heard the sharp crackle of the floo a few seconds later. And then only the light fluttering of leaves in the wind, the unceasing twittering of birdsong, the muffled noises from some of her family playing quidditch in the distance.

Charissa let out a long sigh, leaning back in her chair, both hands coming up to rub at her face. _That_ could have gone better.

* * *

 _August 16th, 1995_

* * *

The spinning green flames lifted away, dropping Bella once again on solid ground.

Two floo-disoriented steps later, she ploughed into another figure, sending them both toppling down to the hard wood tile.

«What happened?» Jyotsăna asked, noticeably clenching about Bella's neck with a combination of wariness and rage. «Are we begin attacked?»

Bella snorted. Silly thing. «It's nothing, Săna. Just ran into someone coming out. Accident.»

With a long, dangerous hiss, Jyotsăna said, «They could have squished me! No, you must make them—»

'Black? What are you doing here?'

Bella glanced up in the direction of the voice, belonging to the person who had so rudely knocked her over. All their fault, clearly. For a couple seconds, she just blinked at the person in confusion. He was very familiar, but she couldn't quite— Ah! Jasper Palmer, Charissa's muggleborn cousin, right. He would have had that blood alchemy ritual done rather recently. It hadn't changed his face that much, but it was still enough to temporarily throw her off. Pushing herself back to her feet, she shot Palmer a narrow smirk. 'Am I not allowed to visit? Luna's my friend too, Palmer.'

Rolling his eyes, with only a brief, 'Yeah, whatever,' Palmer grabbed a pinch of powder and vanished in the usual flash of green.

Huh. Was it just her, or had that been a bit more rude than usual? A hand coming to idly trace along Jyotsăna's spine just under her throat, Bella muttered, «I get the feeling I'm missing something. He was not in a good mood.»

«Was it something worth squishing me for?» Jyotsăna sounded surly. Before getting her, Bella hadn't realised snakes could even _be_ surly.

But she couldn't help smiling to herself. «Oh, I'm sure not, Săna. I'm sure whatever it was could not justify being so careless as to nearly bring harm to you, perish the thought.»

Jyotsăna just hissed little curses against her chest, what Bella took to be the Parseltongue equivalent of muttering under her breath. But by how she clenched slightly, dry scales shifting somewhat against her skin, Bella knew Jyotsăna was pleased. Not that she was hard to please, honestly.

Bella considered where to search for a moment, glancing around the room. And trying not to pay too much attention to exactly what she was looking at — being the bloody Lovegoods, the room was one of the stranger places she'd ever been. The perfectly circular room was filled with randomly-placed furniture in garishly bright colours, none of which matched any other singular piece, all strewn with books and loose parchments and dirty plates and mugs. She noticed a bit of greenish fuzz growing on the remains of someone's dinner — probably Xeno's, he could never remember to clean up after himself, though it was a little odd Luna hadn't taken care of it — and quickly looked away, feeling a bit queasy. Hanging from the ceiling were dozens of little figures of various magical creatures, carved with painstaking detail and enchanted to endure and even move a bit, occasionally make little noises. Some of them were real creatures, yes, but some definitely weren't.

Bella decided when she spotted a nargle and a slashkilter, and automatically knew without doubt what they were supposed to be, that she'd been spending far too much time around Luna these days.

It wasn't an explicitly magical place, for the most part. Odd, certainly, but not too in-your-face impossible. It had been once upon a time, of course — Luna's mum had been the enchantress in the family, and without her around to provide proper maintenance much of the non-essential stuff not directly tied to the wards had since failed. But in this room that still left the floor tiles. The first time she'd come here, she'd noticed the lines in the floor were rectangular, perfectly ordinary narrow tiles of wood in neat lines. Go to the edge of the room, and look at the join between floor and wall very closely, and the spot where each tile meets the wall seems perfectly even, flat lines at right angles. Walk around, and you'll see tile after tile, every one flush and flat and straight against the wall. Which, since the room is circular, is completely impossible.

Magic. Don't think about it too hard.

But anyway, she started making for the iron spiral stairs at the center of the room. Chances were Luna was either in the library down in the basement, or outside if Xeno were making too much noise — he printed his silly magazines down there, Bella couldn't count the times Luna had complained about how loud it was. Down one flight of stairs brought her to the ground floor kitchen, which was equally strange. Cabinets and magical fixtures all oddly bent to accommodate the curving wall, everything painted greens and oranges and blues in a dizzying cacophony. She'd noticed before the ceramic tiles here did the same thing as the wood a floor above, best not to look too closely. She was about to keep heading down another floor when she hitched to a stop. Luna was standing at the sink.

Bella instantly knew something was wrong. Luna was wearing a light sundress an eye-searingly bright yellow and pink, it honestly hurt to look at, and she was facing the other direction. But it was obvious by the way she held herself, propped up against her hands splayed on the edge of the basin, head somewhat bowed, sending her pale hair spilling over her front, shoulders visibly tense. If she had to guess, Luna and Palmer had just had a fight, Bella coming in just in time for Palmer to run into her while storming out.

For a long moment, Bella hesitated. She would _really_ rather not deal with this. She didn't know how to do...she didn't know. Feelings, and the discussing of them. And yes, Andi, she was well aware she only felt as uncomfortable with this kind of squishy thing as she did because of her less-than-ideal early childhood. Perfectly true, thank you. That didn't change the fact that she didn't like it.

But, well, she'd also admit to a sort of morbid curiosity. She'd been watching Luna and Palmer's friendship implode for a while now. Like watching an aeroplane crash and burn in slow motion — entertaining, but in that kind of way she knew she probably shouldn't mention out loud. At least to anyone who wasn't Charissa. And she _had_ had reasons for coming here in the first place. Surely she could tolerate whatever squishy talk Luna might bring up long enough to move on. Maybe.

Okay, then. 'Is this a bad time?' She realised only after the words came out she was speaking in Brīþwn, but that was fine, Luna knew that one.

Luna jumped, turned around in place so quickly her hair spun about her shoulders, her dress fluttering above her knees. When Luna's eyes met hers she relaxed, just barely. It could be extremely hard to read Luna, but she was pretty sure. 'Oh, hello Bella,' she said, also in Brīþwn, voice as airily emotionless as always.

It took Bella a moment to find her voice, shocked into silence by the tears in Luna's eyes, streaks down her cheeks. Luna was crying? Really? Bella had seen Luna cry exactly once — a duelling mishap had landed her with multiple fractures in one of her legs, it hadn't been pleasant. And even then her voice had still had the same flat, wandering tone it virtually always carried, maybe only with a slight hard tension at the edges, even as tears were running down her face. It was the weirdest thing, she had no idea how Luna did that. 'Are you okay?'

'Oh!' Luna scrubbed at her face with the back of her hand, wiping away the tears all over her own face. For all the world, seemingly not having realised she was crying at all. 'It's fine. Forget it.'

'You sure?'

'Just had a long day.'

Bella frowned. 'It's only one.'

A few stray tears still trailing from her eyes, Luna gave her one of those soft, dreamy smiles of hers. 'Yes, I suppose it is.'

'Was whatever Palmer said to you really that bad?' Bella couldn't help shooting a dark glare at the hearth, through the ceiling to her left. It was starting to look like she might have to hurt the prat.

'It wasn't all him.' At Bella's questioning look, Luna let out the softest of sighs. 'Daddy is getting worse, then I might have offended Jas on accident, and he yelled at me. I mean it, Bella, I'm fine. We don't have to talk about it.'

Bella winced — no, she _definitely_ didn't want to talk about the first one. She wasn't exactly an expert, but she knew there was something wrong with Xenophilius Lovegood. He'd always been, she guessed, affably eccentric, but ever since the death of his wife his mental health had been slowly deteriorating. No idea what was going on with him, but she'd mentioned the whole thing to Andi once, and she'd just gotten this sad, distant look, said something about poor Luna, she wished there was something that could be done about it. Hadn't seemed proper to directly ask. So, she'd just be sidestepping that topic, thank you. 'What's got Palmer's knickers in a twist now?' she muttered, drifting over to the spindly wooden table.

There was silence for a short second, Luna blankly staring at her. Then she let out another soft sigh, her eyes flicking to the ceiling for the barest moment, shot Bella a thin smile. 'Tea?'

Slipping into a seat at the table, she shrugged. 'Sure.'

'Normal person tea or—'

' _Normal.'_ Never again.

Luna just smiled at her, eyes slightly unfocused, before turning back to the counter to get it going. 'You know Jas had the ritual a couple weeks ago.'

'I assumed so, yeah.' She hadn't been told when exactly that was scheduled — she and Palmer didn't exactly get along — but she had known it was going to be this summer, and judging by how a few people had gone incommunicado around then it was a good guess.

'Did he look any different, by the way?' Luna asked, turning to raise an eyebrow at Bella over her shoulder. Curiosity was strong enough on her voice it was even audible.

'Don't you think you would know better than me? I barely know him.'

'I wouldn't, actually. He's always looked like a boy to me.'

Bella stared at her back for a second, then shrugged. Luna being Luna. 'A little bit, maybe? I wasn't paying that much attention. It's not, like, a really drastic change, he's still recognisable as himself. But a little different, I guess.'

'Interesting.' Luna paused a moment, firing off a couple heating charms at the pot rather than bother doing it the long way. 'Anyway. I'm told it was barely a couple hours after the ritual was finished that Neira...' Her head tilted to the side just noticeably. 'I believe the phrase is "test drive"?'

Bella failed to choke back a snort of shocked laughter. 'Was that how Palmer put it?'

'I'm told that's how Neira put it, actually.' Huh. Wouldn't have expected a pureblood, from a Noble and Most Ancient House at that, to use such a muggle-ish idiom, but okay. Luna started for the table, a brightly-painted and slightly misshapen mug of steaming something in each hand — hopefully real tea, some of the shite in this kitchen... — a distantly curious look on her face. 'I never did ask what that phrase means. Something to do with those internal combustion vehicles they like so much? Oh well.' Placing one mug in front of Bella, Luna slid into the seat next to her, legs folding against her chest to bring her feet to the edge of her chair, mug wrapped loosely in both hands. 'Jas came to talk to me about that.'

Er... 'He came to talk to you about shagging his girlfriend?'

'Yes.'

Bella gave the mug in front of her a distrustful glance. Maybe worth risking it. 'Why?'

Her voice flat, slow, and completely serious, Luna said, 'Because, Bella, the sins of the flesh are a short and direct road to eternal damnation.' She sounded serious, yes, but Bella had learned by now that that careful, deliberate tone, slightly below her usual talking speed, was just what sarcasm sounded like on Luna.

'Yes, because there is undoubtedly such a thing as eternal damnation. How foolish of us.' Bella risked a quick sip from her mug, then let out a breath of relief at the perfectly ordinary honey-sweetened black tea on her tongue. All right, then. 'I'm guessing you two had another argument about religion, then.'

'Yes.' Luna hesitated a short moment. At least, it felt like hesitation — it was possible she was just pausing to take a sip from her tea, with Luna she couldn't be sure. 'I may have accidentally insulted his entire belief system.'

'Huh?'

'He implied not believing the way he does is a moral failing on my part. I posited him a simple question: can any action ever be considered truly altruistic if the person doing it is only acting out of fear of future punishment? I seek to harm none and do whatever I can to help those in need within my abilities, not because I gain anything from it, or because anything particularly bad will happen to me if I don't, but simply because I believe it the right thing to do; he holds himself to his ethical standards because he believes he will be rewarded with eternal paradise if he does, and punished with eternal torment if he does not. Is one really superior to the other, and if so which?' After another brief sip, Luna shrugged. 'He didn't like that.'

'Yeah, well, he's an idiot.' Whatever Palmer might think on the matter, Luna was actually far more considerate about this kind of thing than she was. Luna was willing to allow some people were simply raised differently, inculcated into different beliefs, that that was not their fault nor a failing of theirs, but beyond their control. If anything, such people should be pitied. But Bella thought that was no excuse for being stupid. Believing a book of fairy tales over two thousand years old to be literal truth simply because the same book says so is _stupid_. And Palmer was supposed to be a bloody Ravenclaw.

Luna didn't argue the point, just shrugged. Come to think of it, she was probably thinking something about Bella, due to her own experiences, being inclined to think that, so there wasn't much point in arguing. But she did say, 'I will admit I think it's a bit silly for him to get so angry with me. Especially since I think it very possible our friendship will never recover from this. I didn't even insult him on purpose.' She let out a short sigh, shaking her head. 'But, then, if I entirely understood what the problem was, the argument likely wouldn't have happened in the first place.'

'Probably not. That sounds like his fault, though. For being an idiot.'

One of those thin, soft smiles on her face, Luna said, 'You think everyone's an idiot.'

Bella shot her one of her best smirks, as sharp and exaggerated as she could make it. 'Everyone _is_ an idiot. It's called misanthropy, Lovegood, look it up.'

If anything, Luna just looked amused, a cheerful brightness in her eyes as she gave Bella an exasperated shake of her head. Which had been the whole point, so mission accomplished. 'Anyway, I'm sure my problems aren't why you came here.'

'Obviously not.' Bella brought a hand to the collar of her robes. «Mind coming out now, love? I think my friend would like to meet you.» After a short moment of reluctance — Jyotsăna preferred to stay somewhere against her body more often than not, when Bella had asked why saying only that she was warm and smelled thick with magic — Jyotsăna loosened from her spot coiled over the side of her neck, slipped out and on to her fingers.

Luna's eyes went even wider than usual, bulging almost cartoonishly. She let out a long, ' _oohhh,'_ her smile stretching larger, enough Bella could see her teeth, which almost never happened. 'You got a familiar, then?'

'Not technically a familiar yet. I'm planning on doing a ritual I found in the library at Chastel Blanc.' Not to her surprise, Luna didn't seem inclined to comment on that — that ritual was blood magic, Luna must certainly know that, which would make it illegal for her to perform it, but Luna would also know she didn't give a damn. That, and she technically wasn't supposed to be sneaking into the old family palace in Brittany, but she _certainly_ didn't give a damn about that either. The library there was incredible, dating from long before the proliferation of various kinds of magic had been illegalised, she wasn't giving it up. Especially delicious, since most of the building had been leased out for use by the Ministry for centuries now, a ton of illegal books kept right under their noses. But anyway, talking to Luna. 'I've named her Jyotsăna.'

'Jyotsăna?'

'Sanskrit. Based on a Parseltongue name she came up with for herself, meaning something like "silent-in-moon-shadow".'

Luna made a long, slow blink. 'Why do you know Sanskrit?'

She didn't, actually — she would need to talk with a fluent speaker for at least a few hours, and she'd never even met anyone who actually spoke Sanskrit. She had no idea where she'd picked up the word. Indirectly through Mandi, maybe? Mandi was a native speaker of Punjabi, it wasn't out of the question she might have had a few bits of Sanskrit and Arabic floating around in her head. Speaking of which, she hadn't talked to her pre-Hogwarts best friend in a while, she should send her a letter. But since she didn't really have a good answer to Luna's question, she just shrugged. 'You can go ahead and say hi, by the way. She should be able to understand you.'

'Oh. Right.' A slight air of focus came over Luna, as though concentrating more than she usually had to — she had been practising her Parseltongue a little with Bella and the twins recently, but she still wasn't perfect with it. And she still always spoke in nestspeech, but Bella wasn't surprised by that. The twins and Selwyn all did as well, she assumed cued by their elder family members using it to talk to them. Despite not being a Parselmouth herself, Luna had probably learned the same from her mother.

Though, that did make her wonder about Charissa. She didn't think she had any immediate Parselmouth relatives — why would she be using nestspeech instead of talking normally? She didn't understand, but she guessed it didn't really matter.

‹You pretty thing, yes,› Luna said, her voice a somewhat strained-sounding hiss. Parseltongue wasn't exactly easy to pronounce, after all. She did have something of an odd accent but, honestly, the lack of the innate Parselmouth magic on the sounds had always seemed stranger by comparison.

Jyotsăna tensed a bit on Bella's hand, one coil tightening around her thumb. «Why does this one sound funny?»

Luna's face sunk into a deeply exaggerated and absolutely adorable pout; it took every bit of Bella's self-control to keep herself from bursting into laughter. ‹Funny?›

'You do have a bit of an accent in Parseltongue. If I hadn't been talking to her for a few days now, she probably wouldn't understand you at all.' Bella glanced back down to Jyotsăna. «Unfortunately, my friend here isn't a Speaker, more's the pity for her. Her mother was, though, so she learned a bit.»

Jyotsăna flicked her a little imitation of a nod — she'd been doing things like that recently, Bella found it sort of adorable. «Hello, then, not-Speaker girl. Since my Proudeyes calls you her friend, I will try not to bite you. Do not annoy me and I won't change my mind.»

Bella snorted at the casual threat, silly thing, but Luna just giggled a little. Which was odd, but Luna _was_ odd, so. ‹So nice. I be good, little one, no worries.›

Clenching about her hand again, Jyotsăna let out a stuttering, amused-sounding hiss. «She calls me little one, but is talking in nestspeech. That is funny.» While Jyotsăna hiss-giggled into the back of her hand some more, Bella just shrugged — she wasn't wrong.

Luna blinked for a second, glancing back up to Bella. ‹Nestspeech? What is?›

Well, she guessed she could explain all that. Not like they had a lot better to do. But, first, «Come now, Săna, don't be rude. Go ahead and get acquainted properly.» She held her hand out a bit toward Luna. Luna obviously followed the point, lifting her own hand until the tips of their fingers met.

And Jyotsăna was slithering away like a flash, curling up Luna's arm in seconds, vanishing under her sleeve. Luna just sat there giggling, a bright, nearly gleeful shine in her eyes, squirming in her chair. 'That tickles.' Then her eyes snapped ridiculously wide again, letting out a high squeal even as her arms wrapped high about her chest. ‹No, stop! Naughty!› There was a chastising tone on her voice, yes, but she was still recklessly grinning, so she obviously didn't care that much.

Bella wasn't surprised Jyotsăna had worked herself someplace sensitive. She'd noticed the silly thing had little concept of personal space, seemingly didn't understand there were places Bella might not be comfortable with her slithering about. But despite herself she was suddenly dealing with a hot flash of envy — the thought of the skin waiting under Luna's dress was more intriguing than it really should be. She was aware being jealous of her pet snake was a bit ridiculous but, well, she guessed that was puberty for you. Fucking hormones.

And then Bella found herself giving Luna a lecture on Parseltongue. Luna was visibly mortified when she realised she'd been using what was essentially baby-talk this whole time, begged Bella to teach her properly. Which, fine, she could do that. It would be a bit boring, true — how slowly everyone else learned languages was really quite annoying — but she guessed it wouldn't be too much trouble. Especially if they worked in some duelling practice, fighting Luna was both enjoyable and instructive. They even started on their first lesson then and there, Bella trying not to be too distracted by Jyotsăna occasionally moving around, barely visible through the thin cloth of Luna's dress.

She was a bit pleased when Jyotsăna said at one point Bella smelled better than Luna. Luna didn't understand what she meant by that, and Bella didn't explain — it didn't seem quite tactful to brag about how her pet snake could tell Bella was the more powerful witch.

They'd been sitting there talking about Parseltongue for some time, she had no idea how long exactly, when Bella heard the crackling roar faintly from the floor above. Luna cut off to glance upward in time with her, but they only had to wait a couple seconds before they had their answer. 'Luna?' Ah, that was Hermione's voice, she recognised it easily enough. The note of slight hysteria was a bit odd, though.

Rather than raise her voice — Bella wasn't certain Luna was physically capable of shouting — Luna drew her wand, shot a silent charm over Bella's shoulder at the central staircase. A glance showed a section adjoining the ceiling was glowing a soft blue. That would do it. A moment later Hermione was tromping into view down the stairs, in muggle jeans and tee shirt as seemingly always. Slightly odd, considering she was technically the Mistress of a Common House these days, didn't seem inclined to dress the part, but fine. Bella noticed instantly her face was a bit pale, looking shocked, almost sickened. 'Luna?'

Luna gave her one of her characteristically calm blinks. 'Yes?' Oh, English now. Okay then.

'Why are there plates up there with things growing on them?'

'There are—?' Luna cut off, her eyes closing as she let out a short sigh. 'Go ahead and have a seat, I'll be right back.' And Luna was on her feet, quick retrieving Jyotsăna to deposit her on Bella's shoulder, then she disappeared up the stairs, her normal drifting grace uncharacteristically weighted down.

Hermione watched her go for a moment, then paused for another moment, staring narrow-eyed at Jyotsăna slipping back under Bella's collar — she would certainly be able to tell what kind of snake that was. But she shook her head, making for one of the other chairs around the table. 'What was that about?'

'No idea,' she said with a shrug. 'Have the feeling we'll be finding out in a second.'

She wasn't wrong: only a couple moments later, Luna was floating down the stairs, a dense collection of dishes and mugs levitated over her wand at her shoulder. Bella was a bit relieved to notice Luna had vanished the disturbingly fuzzy remains off everything before bringing them down. 'Sorry about that. It seems Daddy decided to put a single-target aversion charm on them. I hadn't known they were there.'

'Why the bloody hell would he do that?'

Luna gave Bella a shrug, ignoring the little glare Hermione sent her just as casually as Bella was. 'I do not know. I'm sure he had some reason that seemed reasonable to him. But many reasons seem reasonable to him these days.' Luna gently dropped the pile of neglected dinnerware into the sink, then instantly set about making another pot of tea. Bella noticed she was making normal person tea without even asking this time. She'd probably only done that with Bella to mess with her in the first place, but still. 'Is something wrong, Hermione?'

Giving Bella a minutely surly glance, Hermione said, 'Does there have to be something wrong for me to visit you?'

'No,' Luna said, shrugging only slightly. 'But there is.'

'How do you—'

Luna lifted a hand to tap once at the side of her own head.

'Oh, right.' Hermione slumped in her chair a little, a slight pinking of embarrassment crossing her cheeks. 'I somehow always forget about that.'

'I don't make a point of reminding the people it makes uncomfortable.'

'It doesn't make me uncomfortable.' After a slight pause, Hermione gave a reluctant shrug, said, 'Okay, it doesn't make me _too_ uncomfortable. It really freaked me out at first, but you can't really help it, and you're not too invasive. It's fine.'

Bella failed to hold back a snort of laughter. When Hermione shot her a glare, she raised an eyebrow back. 'You realise your girlfriend is a legilimens, of course.' Hermione winced, but only slightly, shifting in her seat a little. Odd, that.

By the curious look on Luna's face, the long humming noise she held as she wandered back to the table with the fresh tea, she thought it was odd as well. But Luna was also a cheater. 'You're here to talk about Charissa. Something happened, I'm guessing. You feel very...conflicted? That is about her, right?'

Hermione sent Bella another sharp glance. If she had to guess, Hermione _had_ come here to talk about Charissa, and she hadn't at all counted on Bella being here as well. Hermione did not like her. She had absolutely no idea why, no idea what she'd done to get Hermione to hate her so much, but she'd long ago stopped being confused by it.

"Confused" was rather light, really. She could honestly say Charissa was quite possibly her favourite person in existence. The first time they'd ever met, she'd done something, introducing her to Andi, that had done Bella a lot of good — as depressing as this might sound, anyone doing nice things for her wasn't something she was really used to — and she'd done it with vanishingly little possible benefit to herself. And she always put up with her, even though she could be quite annoying sometimes, she knew. Charissa was almost never objectively _kind_ , sure, but she tolerated her at least. She took the time to teach her plenty of magic she wouldn't have known otherwise, even putting far more effort into that advocacy last year than Bella had honestly been expecting. And Charissa was only getting more and more ridiculously powerful and knowledgeable as months passed, so Bella hoped there would always be more to learn. As long as Charissa continued to be willing to teach, and she saw little reason to fear she would change her mind.

So, practically since the day she'd first met her, she'd wanted to be around Charissa as much as possible. But Charissa's best friend, and later girlfriend, inexplicably hated her. For no good reason! She had no idea why, Hermione had been constantly cold and sharp with her from the very beginning. She didn't understand. She would admit, it had bothered her at first. Not because she really cared what Hermione thought of her, especially if she was going to be such a bitch all the time, but she _did_ care what _Charissa_ thought of her, and it wasn't outside the realm of possibility Hermione's opinion might influence hers. Eventually, she'd come to realise that wouldn't be happening — Charissa had apparently inherited some degree of the absurd Black family loyalty — so she'd gradually ceased caring about it so much.

These days, honestly, she mostly just thought it was funny. So she returned Hermione's glare with a smirk. 'Honestly, Granger, I'm not contagious, you know.'

Accepting a mug of tea from Luna, Hermione let out a little huff, clearly dismissing Bella without another thought. 'I just, something came up and, well... You've known Charissa for a while, right? Since before Hogwarts, I mean.'

Again in her chair, Luna let out a little hum, her head tilting slightly. 'Yes, a little bit. I doubt I know her better than you do, though. We were never that close.' Of course, excluding the fact Luna probably knew most people better than they knew themselves, being an empath and all. Bella sometimes thought Luna went _too_ far out of her way to avoid drawing attention to that.

So she forced out another snort. 'And maybe that's exactly what you need, Hermione.' At the looks she got from both of the other girls, she said, 'Oh, come on, you don't know what I mean? Sometimes people who are too close, too involved, are exactly the people who can't evaluate a person or situation objectively. Obviously you must know, Hermione, that you're closer to Charissa than either of us are — I mean, it's not like either of us are spending quite so much time rutting about with her.' By the angry flash in her eyes, Hermione didn't exactly appreciate her putting it like that. Tee hee. 'Why would you think either of us would know her better than you do? Obviously, you don't, not really, that's not why you're here.'

'Bella—'

'You know I'm right, Luna. It wouldn't kill you to admit what you know once in a while.' Luna winced at that one, which Bella felt slightly guilty about, but she wasn't wrong. Luna held too much back sometimes, it did no good to anyone.

For a few seconds, Hermione just glared at her, eyes narrowed and jaw visibly clenched, fingers tight about her tea. Then she let out a sigh, shaking her head. ' _Fine_ , yes, sure. You were probably correct in your completely unnecessary interjection. Can we move on?'

Pulling her lips into a wide grin, voice high and bright, Bella said, 'By all means!'

Hermione glared for another moment before shrugging it off and getting to the point. 'A couple days ago, Charissa told me she's engaged.'

'Ah, yes,' Luna said, a clearly uncomfortable look falling over her face. And Luna was almost never externally uncomfortable, so she must be feeling especially awkward to actually show it. 'Yes, I thought that would be happening soon.'

'Obviously.' Most Noble Houses made some sort of arrangement at fifteen. Whether it was ever finalised was less certain, but Bella had been expecting this. 'Who's the future Potter?'

A grimace of distaste pulled at Hermione's lip. 'Hesper Gaunt.'

Despite herself, Bella felt her face slip into a frown. Lucky bastard. Well, at least he liked her far more than Hermione did — the twins could be annoyingly affectionate with their _cute baby cousin_ , actually, it took some effort to shake them off sometimes. Could be worse. 'So, the problem is you don't like him.'

' _No.'_ Hermione paused for a second, then let out a hard sigh. 'Okay, yes, that's _part_ of the problem. But... But she didn't _tell_ me!'

Luna blinked at her. 'You found out from someone else?'

'No, I mean, she didn't tell me when it was being set up. I had no idea this was happening until a few days afterward.'

'Oh, well...' Bella frowned at Hermione, wondering how exactly to put what she was thinking. 'And, that's a bad thing.'

' _Yes_ , it's a _bad thing!'_

'Why?'

Hermione didn't answer, just glared at her with almost impressive intensity. Almost, anyway — Bella was a Black, after all, she had great-aunts who were much scarier than Hermione. Instead of saying anything to her, she turned back to Luna. 'Why wouldn't she talk to me about it?'

'She didn't think it was your business, obviously.'

' _I wasn't asking—!'_

'Mm.' The soft sound from Luna made Hermione break off just at the start of what likely would have been a mildly entertaining tirade. Still looking very clearly uncomfortable, Luna said, 'She is probably right, though.'

'I...' It took Hermione a long moment to find her words again, staring at Luna wide-eyed with her mouth hanging dumbly open. 'I, I'm her girlfriend, though. How is that _not_ my business?'

'You're not a Potter.'

Hermione shot Bella another glare at her flatly-delivered statement. 'If this is another muggleborn thing—'

'It's not.' With a little shrug, Luna continued, slipping a quelling glance at Bella into the seemingly random wandering of her eyes. 'While this sort of inter-House arrangement is still being negotiated, it is considered private family business, between Houses Potter and Gaunt. It is not unusual for the parties involved to talk to lovers about it, but they technically aren't supposed to. Since you are neither a Potter nor a Gaunt, you were not to know. In not telling you, Charissa was only following the rules — perhaps a bit more faithfully than most people do, but there it is.'

For a moment, Hermione was silently, flatly staring at Luna. Finally, she muttered, 'I thought she was lying about that.'

Bella shook her head. 'Why would she?' Far as she could tell, Charissa only ever lied in an effort to seem more like a normal person. Personally, she wasn't sure why Charissa bothered, but that wasn't really the point. That definitely was not one of her normal-person lies — not to mention it also happened to be true, and easily falsifiable if it weren't. No good motivation to tell it and too easy to be caught, not the kind of lie Charissa would tell.

'I don't know, the whole thing was just...' Hermione trailed off with a long sigh, leaning to rest her head on one hand, propped up with an elbow on the table. 'I don't know. I wasn't thinking very rationally at the time. Or after, even, why I wanted advice.'

'Yes,' Luna said, voice low and thin and distant. 'Charissa always was a difficult person to figure out.'

Hermione blinked, straightened up a little to focus on Luna. 'Really? Can't you just read her like anyone else?'

'Ah.' Luna sunk into her seat, just a little, barely noticeable. Apparently, she hadn't meant to lead into that topic. 'Well, no, I can't, really. Sometimes a little? She doesn't feel like anyone else.'

'What do you mean? Doesn't feel like anyone else, how?'

'She's like...' Luna hesitated a moment, not meeting Hermione's eyes, fingers slowly tapping on her mug of tea. 'Mm, flat. And dark. Black ink on black parchment, like there isn't enough contrast to measure her proper. Which is a little odd, because at the same time she's really...loud? That's just her magic, though, she's powerful, but the juxtaposition is curious. And the threads binding her to people are very strange, I was never sure what to think about those.'

Bella blinked at that — she'd somehow forgotten entirely Luna conceptualised relationships between people as little ethereal threads she could see tying them together. Well, not _see_ , technically, Luna just used sight as a metaphor for some things, it was complicated. She was suddenly curious what the threads between her and Charissa looked like. Apparently, Hermione was having a similar thought, tensing in her chair slightly. 'What do you mean, strange?'

For a second, Luna paused, eyes falling gently closed. 'I don't really know how to describe this sort of thing to someone who isn't me. They're dark, as black as the rest of her, but they... It's sort of like sunlight hitting oil, you get all these rainbow colours going off it every once in a while. And most of them are very, very thin, I almost can't even tell they're there, only visible by a little glimmering once in a while. But with some people—'

Bella straightened a little. Did she... Was it her imagination, or had Luna's eyes flicked to her for the barest instant?

'—they're almost unnaturally dense, far more than I usually see. And they ring with music, bone deep and haunting and unearthly. It's...' Luna trailed off, frowning to herself ever so slightly, eyes somewhat unfocused. Then she shook herself, returning from wherever she'd drifted off to. 'I don't know how to read it. It's odd.'

'I do.'

Both Hermione and Luna turned to look at her, matching expressions of disbelief on their faces. Well, not quite matching — Hermione's looked a shade away from angry, Luna's with that same dreamy lack of focus she never seemed without — but similar in any case. After a moment, Luna said, 'I would find it most curious if you really do.'

'Yes,' Hermione said, just under a snarl, 'do enlighten us.'

Bella gave a disdainful sniff, drew out the moment by taking a slow sip from her tea. The increasing flickers of annoyance crossing Hermione's forehead were totally worth it. 'Charissa's a psychopath, obviously. Well, technically,' she added with a little shrug. 'Isn't there some rule about not being able to diagnose that before full physical maturity? I think I vaguely remember something about that, children and teenagers just being arseholes sometimes leading to false positives. Whatever.'

And that just seemed to make Hermione even more annoyed with her, her hard glare carrying an almost offended air to it. 'You're bloody insane, you know that?'

Luna, on the other hand, just looked mildly curious. 'What's a psychopath?'

Apparently, Hermione couldn't just leave the question unanswered, jerking away from her glare at Bella to turn to Luna. Because she was Hermione fucking Granger. 'Muggle term, a personality disorder characterised by reduced empathy, inhibited or entirely absent fear responses, and generally antisocial or egotistical patterns of behaviour. There is a wealth of evidence of some association with defects in brain structure, particularly certain features of the limbic system and the orbitofrontal cortex, but there is still much debate among experts on exactly what psychopathy is, and exactly what causes it.'

'Very nice, Professor Granger. Quite informative.'

Hermione turned to give Bella another glare, noticeably sharper than even the one she'd been giving her just a second ago. Seemed Hermione was swiftly losing patience with her. Tee hee. 'Either start being helpful or shut up.'

'I am being helpful, though. Just look at Luna.' Hermione turned to glance at the other girl, seeing exactly what Bella had already noticed: Luna's head had tilted a bit to the side, an absently thoughtful sort of look on her face. Clearly, applying what Hermione had just said to what she'd observed of Charissa. But she wasn't saying anything, so Bella decided to prod things along. She had actually already guessed all this about Charissa without Luna's empath cheats, but Hermione was far more likely to believe it if it came from Luna. 'Do you get a lot of emotional variety from Charissa? Through your whole not-aura reading, I mean.'

Luna shook her head, slowly and slightly enough her hair barely moved. 'Not really.' Luna stopped there, but Bella could tell she wasn't quite done, so she just waited; by some miracle, Hermione managed to not jump in with anything. 'I have witnessed her feeling five emotions total.'

'And they are?'

'I don't know,' she said with a slight shrug. 'They're not exactly like everyone else's. She's really hard to read. If I were to guess, just contrasting them with each other... Well, there's her normal, what she's almost always like, just sort of still and...watching? Let's call that one watching. And there's another one that's sort of similar, but far more focused. It's what she's almost always like duelling, or reading, or in class, but sometimes she'll slip into it just talking to people too. That one we'll call...intense? It is pretty intense, really sharp and bright, we'll go with that. And then there is what is almost certainly amusement, that one isn't so hard to read. It is a bit flat, but it's clear that's what it is.

'And then there's one that... Well, I wouldn't be sure what to call it. It's sort of similar to, you know, affection, or love, that kind of thing, but it doesn't feel quite... Well, in anyone else, there's a sort of...warmth to it. I can kind of almost feel it, like standing in front of a fire, just radiating off them. Charissa gets the feeling of, mm, safety, of being at ease, at home, but the warmth that should be there isn't.' Luna shrugged. 'Not sure what that means. And the last one I can only call agitated. It covers lots of things, discomfort to annoyance to frustration to anxiety to rage. In most people those are different things, but in Charissa there only seems to be a difference in intensity and how they're directed. All cold and black, filled with motion restrained, only differing in how harshly the cold burns, exactly where that motion wants to go.' Luna's eyes tipped back down from the ceiling, calmly finding Bella's. 'Was that what you were asking for?'

Bella nodded. 'It'll do. You've never witnessed Charissa feel frightened?'

Shaking her head a little, Luna said, 'No, never. Charissa doesn't get frightened. When we would be frightened, Charissa is either intense or agitated.'

'Wait, never?' A glance showed a look of dawning comprehension breaking through the disbelief on Hermione's face. Not pleasant comprehension, of course. 'You've _never_ seen Charissa afraid?'

'No. Which I have always thought was unusual. People are generally afraid on a daily basis, if only mildly. It scared me a little, in fact, when I was younger, that Charissa didn't.'

Doing her absolute best to repress a crooked grin — she loved being right — Bella asked, 'How about nervous? Does she get nervous?'

'No, not really.'

With a slight frown, Hermione said, 'But you said, just a second ago, that she does get anxious. How's that different?'

'She did use the word anxious, but she also said it was synonymous with frustration and anger. That's not normal anxiety, now, is it?'

Luna shot Bella a tiny nod of agreement before turning back to Hermione. 'When I say "anxious" I'm referring to a sense of... Well, sometimes, in a duel, you know there's a hit coming, but you made a mistake, and you can't stop it. So there's a split second there when you know you're going to take a hit, and there's nothing you can do. That same wary anticipation, there's something bad coming and you can't stop it, that same sense of self-directed frustration, anger at yourself for failing to prevent it, that's what I meant by anxiety. Charissa feels that, sometimes, but that's not really equivalent to normal person anxiety, or nervousness. Just the best analog I could come up with, if you follow.'

Hermione seemed to have grasped the idea, so Bella prodded the topic along again. 'How about embarrassment? Have you ever felt Charissa embarrassed, or ashamed?'

With another light shake of her head, Luna said, 'No. In situations we would be embarrassed she feels that same anxiety I just described, and when we would be ashamed she's intense.'

Bella had to think about that for a brief second. 'Like she thinks she's failed, and is anticipating having to defend herself from someone pointing it out.'

Luna took a very similar thoughtful pause, then nodded. 'Yes, that seems to explain it. How are you doing this, by the way?'

'Omniglot,' she said with a little shrug.

'Ah, yes.' There was the barest sense of embarrassed self-reproach on Luna's voice.

And not for no reason — it was well-established there were a few things that tended to go hand in hand with being an omniglot, and one of them was an ability to intuitively understand people after only a brief meeting. Presumably, it was a secondary consequence of the mechanism by which she swiped languages out of people's heads without them noticing, but over the centuries all the mind magic experts in the world had never been able to confirm exactly how it worked. She couldn't read people's feelings moment-to-moment the way Luna could, she wasn't an empath, but she could get an evaluation of what someone's personality was like without too much difficulty, something Luna could do only after repeated exposure and observation. Not like Charissa either, in that she didn't get precise, specific thoughts and motivations, just a general template of behaviour — if she could know details like Charissa could, she would know why Hermione hated her so much. If she were to put it briefly, Charissa and Luna got extremely specific details out of people, while Bella just got the big picture, in broad strokes. So, different sides of the same coin, in a way.

Anyway, moving on. 'So,' she said, leaning back in her chair a little. 'Charissa does not feel fear, she does not feel embarrassment or shame, only getting mildly annoyed she might have to defend her actions, and, going from what you said earlier about there not being any of the warmth on what should be affection, she doesn't get attached to people the same way everyone else does. At the least, she doesn't feel about it the same way we do.' Bella turned to raise an eyebrow at Hermione. 'What do you think? Sound like a psychopath to you so far?'

'But...' Bella wasn't sure what to make of Hermione at the moment. She was leaning slightly over the table, one hand somewhat shakily slipping through her artificially frizzy hair, face blank but eyes wide, staring at something Bella couldn't see. It was odd. 'But she always seemed...'

'You're not telling me you haven't noticed Charissa might as well be a bloody brick wall most of the time. It must have occurred to you at some point she might be just as cold inside as she is outside.'

'I... I don't know. I thought she was, you know, not very expressive. She just didn't show it as much as other people. And didn't get worked up over stupid nonsense.'

Bella failed to hold back a derisive snort. But then, she wasn't really trying very hard — bloody Ravenclaws, honestly. 'There you go making assumptions without positive evidence. She doesn't demonstrate emotion, she doesn't seem to prioritise emotional closeness or vulnerabilities the way other people do. So you assume she actually does, but hides it with unrealistically consistent perfection because...reasons? Not sure how that makes sense.' Bella paused quick to take a sip of tea. Whoops, getting cold... 'And, of course she doesn't get worked up over stupid nonsense. She doesn't get worked up.'

'But, but she's always been nice to me.'

'Are you saying psychopaths are physically incapable of being nice?' Bella shrugged. 'She chooses to be nice to you because she wants to. It's not complicated.' She turned away from Hermione — who was visibly struggling with the whole idea, but Bella didn't really care — and spoke to Luna. 'I have a theory about those threads of hers too.'

It took Luna a moment to pull her eyes away from Hermione. Bella might not care, but Luna obviously did. 'Ah, yes?'

'Normal threads, between two normal people, what would they look like? I mean, do they have colours? I mean, what you describe to us as colours, anyway. How does it work?'

Luna paused for a moment, clearly organising her own observations, trying to parse it all in a way she would understand. 'Mm. You know, if you are tied to someone, if you care for them, what they feel affects you. You care, right? So, you take a part of them into you, some part of you becoming a reflection of them. And they do the same thing with you, that reciprocal sympathy making that connection. That's the only way I can say it that makes sense.'

'Right,' Bella said, nodding to herself. 'So... I'm going to guess Charissa's threads lead only outward. She doesn't draw in, she doesn't take anyone into herself. Instead the— You said she was black, right? Instead she pushes a bunch of her blackness into the people she's closest to, extending herself out and into them, making her threads look like an extension of herself. How am I doing?'

For long seconds, Luna just stared at her, silvery eyes comically wide, not even blinking. 'That's not a bad description of it, though I never thought to think of it that way. How are you _doing_ this?'

'I am a genius, obviously.' Bella ignored the snap of sharp, humourless laughter from Hermione. 'It's not difficult, though. I'm sure you could have figured it out on your own if you knew what you were looking at. Psychopaths don't grow attached the same way we do. They don't unconsciously grow to care, they don't seek intimacy. They invest, consciously. They find someone who amuses them, or impresses them, or entertains them, or is simply useful or they are socially obligated, whatever, and they decide to expend the effort to maintain some sort of relationship. Not because they need to, for emotional reasons, but because they choose to.

'Take my relationship with Charissa as an example.' Hermione started and shot her a glare at Bella's use of the word _relationship_ , but Bella ignored it — if Hermione was going to misinterpret what she meant and get all huffy about it, that was her problem. 'When we met, she saw a problem. My living situation, the nonsense with my mother's scheming. She saw an obvious way to fix the problem, so she did it. Not because she felt sorry for me, or because she felt any emotional drive to do nice things for people. She saw how to solve a problem, so she did. Now, I wasn't particularly accustomed to people doing nice things for me, so I then spent some months following her around, perhaps being a bit annoying, I'll admit. She wasn't explicitly nice to me, over that time, but she wasn't cruel either, didn't try to get me to go away. At that point, I believe it was social obligation — being a cousin and all, a cousin who had fewer people to look out for me than most, she felt it was up to her to make sure I wasn't _completely_ alone. But that obligation didn't extend to going out of her way to please me, so she didn't expend too much effort.

'It was in spring that year that she started finding me entertaining. Not sure exactly what I did to achieve that, but I assume it was something. And since she hates being bored, so would rather surround herself with entertaining people, she started being nicer to me, so she would continue to be entertained. Not complicated. Eventually, I started showing interest in duelling, and also some not insignificant talent, especially for my age. Not only that, but I wanted to learn from her specifically. This was an opportunity, to teach me and shape me the way she likes, so she can have a wand at her back trained exactly to her specifications. One she finds entertaining, at that. Thus, the actual effort she put into our advocacy this last year — which I hadn't expected, honestly, I'd thought she would put in the bare minimum — to remake me more in her image. To make of me what she wants me to be. Which she is still doing, even with the advocacy technically over.

'I'm sure I have her all over me by now, all those threads filled with her rainbow blackness, because she's expended quite a bit of effort on me. I wouldn't be surprised if even some of me is black like her now. See, the effort she expended changed me a bit. At some level, even if she's not conscious of it, I'm sure she feels the me-because-of-her is still, in a way, part of her. An extension of her. And because of that, I belong to her in a way most things, most people, don't. I would expect small bits of her to slip into everyone she invests in, but I would think it would be more obvious in me than most other people, because I am aware of this happening, aware how she likely feels about it, and I'm perfectly fine with it. I would expect that to look different to you in someone who is ignorant of it, and would be uncomfortable with it in any case.

'How'd I do? Does that fit with what you've observed the last couple of years?'

Again, Luna could only stare at her for long moments, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Finally she managed only, ' _How?'_

Giving Luna her best smirk, Bella said, 'I told you, I'm—'

'—a genius, mm-hmm, right.'

Of course, she didn't think she was, really. What she actually was was an enormous fucking cheater.

See, there was a lot more to being an omniglot than just picking up languages. That _was_ what the talent was centred on, and she _did_ have a special fascination for languages in general, but... Okay, it would probably be more accurate to say there was more to the idea of language than people tended to think. It wasn't just learning words, the order to put them in. It was far, far more complicated than that.

At its essence, she thought it was probably related to how the brain processed thoughts and concepts, though she wasn't quite informed enough on the topic to get too in depth. In short, the language-processing areas of the brain mapped a word to a concept, or multiple concepts as appropriate. Words weren't always mapped to concepts the same way — another language might map the same word to concepts split between multiple words in English, or vice versa. This was easiest to see in kinship terms in various languages. In some languages you might have different words depending on whether the cousin in question is a boy or a girl, or older or younger than you, or if they're the kid of your mother's sister or father's brother or your parent's opposite-gendered sibling, or some combination of those. Brīþwn, interesting example, over the last millennium or so, the words that had once been used for siblings had now extended to all cousins in the same House — to the point there was no longer an independent term for true siblings, they used a newer compound if they needed to be specific — the words originally for various types of cousins now only applying to relatives in different Houses.

As that example clearly showed, to know how to properly use the words she was learning Bella had to understand the culture to a certain degree, had to understand how words were mapped to concepts. Or, even more complicated, what was appropriate to say when, and to whom, and how to go about saying it. This stuff was all extremely subtle, far more than just saying these new words were equivalent to the familiar English words, go nuts. Language didn't work like that. Linguists did tend to say a language was inseparable from the context of the culture that used it for a reason.

And it didn't only work with straight language. She was pretty sure that was how she could read people's personalities so quickly: she unconsciously picked up the connotations found in how that specific person mapped concepts to words, learning much about the way they thought without even realising it. She wasn't entirely sure about this, but she thought it was why she learned so quickly in general — what was learning if not mapping words to new concepts? And it _was_ obvious she could pick up entirely new ideas through however this omniglot stuff worked, not just words to attach to ideas she'd already formed, otherwise she wouldn't have had an adult's grasp of English since she'd been literally three years old.

Why, yes, that _had_ creeped the fuck out of quite nearly every adult she'd ever talked to. Loads of fun, her childhood.

And she had extra special bonus knowledge that helped with this particular issue. She'd been seven years old when her school had decided to send her to a shrink, who hadn't taken very long at all to decide Bella had clearly had oppositional defiant disorder. (Still had? Whatever.) But, the shrink she'd been sent to had actually been very open, and not too proud to have a serious academic discussion with an unnaturally precocious seven-year-old, so they'd had a couple long conversations about ODD, RAD, CD, APD, NPD, psychopathy, all that fun stuff. And, because Bella was an enormous fucking cheater, she'd copied a fair bit of it straight out of his head — because what were all those diagnoses if not words attached to concepts? She didn't know all the fine detail he had, of course, but enough to get a general understanding of the ideas involved.

 _That_ was why she could explain what Luna saw better than Luna herself could. Even if she'd never seen it herself, she had heard Luna describe what she observed with her Seer powers a few times, enough to copy a sufficient understanding straight out of her head. She'd spent plenty of time around Charissa, heard how she used words and watched how she behaved, enough to copy a sufficient model of her personality straight out of _her_ head. And she'd done her usual bit of knowledge-stealing from a bloody psychologist years ago. It was just a matter of putting the pieces together from there.

It was more fun to arrogantly declare she was a genius, though. Mostly just because watching people get all hissy tickled her.

Yeah, her shrink had maybe had a point with that ODD thing.

'But that doesn't...' Hermione bit her lip, staring off at nothing. Her hair had gone far more frizzy than normal now, as it usually did when she was agitated, leaking magic fucking it up and all. Bella could almost taste it on the air, like a summer thunderstorm. She was otherwise showing very little external sign of whatever was going on in her head, though. 'I don't understand. That would mean she doesn't... No, that can't be right.'

'This confirmation bias you Ravenclaws have sometimes. Always think you know better. Such arrogance, really quite funny.'

'Oh, and you don't?'

'The difference is I _do_ know better.' Hermione opened her mouth to snap back, but Bella continued, voice raised a bit to talk over her, before she could get anything out. 'You believe certain things about Charissa because you _want_ to, because it makes you _feel_ better if what you want is true. You want her to feel for you the way you do for her, so you've convinced yourself she does, ignoring all evidence that might dispute it. And you think yourself a rational person, how adorable.' Hermione's face was turning rather red now, expression all tight with building rage, enough Bella couldn't hold in a smirk at the sight. 'Well, sorry to break it to you, Granger, but she doesn't love you. She never will. She _can't_. She certainly _likes_ you — why else would she invest so much effort in maintaining her relationship with you? It's not like it costs her nothing, so she must have a reason for it. And she certainly cares more about you, has invested more in you, than she has any of other lovers, but that's because she _chooses_ to, not because she has any emotional _need_ to. It's not complicated.'

'What do you mean, _other lovers?'_

Bella blinked in surprise, mostly-emptied mug of tea frozen halfway to her mouth. What? Hermione _still_ didn't know about that? By the harsh edge on her voice, the vulnerable disbelief on her face, not to mention the subtle sense of pitying resignation falling over Luna, she apparently didn't. Huh. 'You sure you want me to tell you? You know some of them.' Not really friends with any of them — Charissa wasn't quite that careless — but she was definitely familiar with a few.

Just with that, the disbelief fell away from Hermione's face, leaving horrified certainty. Which Bella thought was a bit odd. Hermione really didn't like her, she knew that, but was willing to take her word on this? Interesting. For a long moment she hesitated, judging by the shifting of her jaw chewing on the inside of her lip, her eyes filled with fearful wariness, the very beginnings of anguish. Finally, she drew in a long, slow breath, her face setting with determination. 'Who?'

Hmm. Wouldn't have expected that. She'd have thought Hermione would have just stormed out or something, with how much she clearly didn't want to hear this, didn't want to be here. Bella was slightly impressed, actually. 'Well, you know Sorcha, pretty sure she's one.' Hermione flinched — she obviously did know Sorcha. 'I wouldn't be shocked if her girlfriends got in on it at some point, so the elder Prewett and the Gryffindor Moon. Tracey, definitely, her most often I think; don't hold me to it, but I'm pretty sure _not_ Daphne, uncertain.' Daphne didn't have nearly the hyperactive libido her girlfriend did, and Astoria likely would have told Bella if she knew of it. 'And Bones, the one in your year. Those are the ones I know about, wouldn't be surprised if there are more.'

Hermione didn't respond, at least not right away. She'd broken eye contact, staring down at her fists on the table. She didn't argue, she didn't cry, she didn't whine. She just stared downward, eyes slightly narrowed in an odd glare, breaths coming slow and thick. A quick glance at Luna showed her eyes steady on Hermione, wary, as though wanting to comfort her, but not knowing how to go about it, or if it would be accepted. Finally Hermione's breath changed a bit, obviously gathering herself to speak. 'I don't... Why? Just, why?'

Bella gave a careless shrug. 'Hell if I know. You'd have to ask her that.'

For a second, the room was still. Then Hermione was popping up to her feet, making for the stairwell at the centre of the room, back of one hand scrubbing at her watery eyes. _Now_ she was storming out, alright then. Before she'd hardly moved, Luna was following her, saying something Bella wasn't paying attention to, both of them disappearing up the stairs. She doubted Luna would be able to talk her out of leaving, she was gone. Probably to go break up with Charissa. Well, maybe she'd stall a few days to work up her courage first, who knows. Definitely coming up soon, though. Charissa had miscalculated on that one — if she'd wanted to keep Hermione long-term she should have come clean about all this a long time ago, Hermione would have been far more likely to tolerate it then.

Bella didn't feel bad about single-handedly sinking their relationship, of course. In fact, she rather felt like congratulating herself. Smirking, she threw back the rest of her tea in a single gulp. And then winced, shite had gotten cold and gross, dammit.

«Why did that girl get so angry?»

Bella nearly corrected Jyotsăna — unless she was mistaken, Hermione was more hurt than she was angry. But she doubted the silly thing would ever fully understand human emotion anyway, so there was little point in explaining. «I was mean to her.»

«To make her angry on purpose?»

She had to grin at that. Might be a silly thing, but she understood Bella better than most humans did sometimes. «I might have done, at that.»

«Was it funny?»

«Not as funny as it could have been, but a little bit.» Hermione was too composed to explode the way some people would, wouldn't have expected her to be that especially entertaining. «Remind me when we get home, and I'll explain.»

Only a few seconds later, Luna was tromping back down the stairs, her footsteps much heavier than usual. 'I suppose you're pleased with yourself.'

She leaned her head over the back of her chair, giving Luna a sideways grin. 'I suppose I am. I always did like breaking things. Besides, someone had to. They would have danced around their issues forever if someone hadn't given them a push.'

Standing just a few steps behind her, Luna tilted her head a bit, giving her quite possibly the mildest chastising look in the history of the genre. But Luna was just like that. 'It was entirely for their good, of course.'

'My, Luna dear, what could you possibly be implying?'

'You want Charissa.'

'You want Hermione.' Feeling her grin go noticeably crooked, Bella winked. 'You're welcome, by the way. Just solved your dilemma for you, what are friends for.'

Luna's forehead creased and cheeks lifted, only slightly, in a very light scowl. 'What is that supposed to mean?'

'Well, you couldn't tell Hermione about all this yourself, of course. She would always remember you were the person who told her her first girlfriend was a cold-hearted bitch, she'd think of it every time she saw you. Now, isn't _that_ a damper on any potential romance! But, since I took care of it, now she'll just associate it with me, and she already hates me. You're welcome.'

Bella was entirely right, of course, but for some reason Luna's scowl only intensified. Looking a bit much for Luna, actually, she didn't normally express that much, certainly nothing negative. 'Perhaps the thought had occurred to _you_ , but I never planned on sabotaging their relationship to give myself a chance.'

She shrugged. 'Not yet, anyway. It would have happened eventually.'

Oh, wow, was Luna actually glaring at her? She didn't think she'd ever seen Luna glare. Maybe she should back off a bit, she actually _liked_ Luna, but this was far too much fun. Also true, so. 'And I suppose you're not even going to wait for the dust to settle before moving in on Charissa.'

'I'm not even going to try.' By the look crossing Luna's face, she obviously didn't believe her, so Bella shot her a glare. 'I'm only thirteen. I doubt she'd take me seriously in any case. Besides, at some level, I'm rather certain she sees me as, sort of, her baby cousin she has to take care of. Not exactly potential lover material. I'll probably have to wait years for an opportunity to come around.' She shrugged. 'But, that's fine, I can wait.'

'I really hate you sometimes.'

'Of course you do.'

'Mm.'

For long moments neither of them moved, Luna still standing there glaring at her, Bella smirking up at her. But it didn't take very long before Bella got bored. 'Wanna duel?'

Luna let out a sudden, sharp sigh. 'Fuck, yes.' And she started for the door outside, already pulling her wand from her sleeve.

Following close behind her, yanking Jyotsăna out from around her neck, Bella couldn't help chuckling to herself a little. Sometimes she really loved her life these days.

* * *

 _August 17th, 1995_

* * *

Charissa glared down at the embroidered shawl, her fingers twitching with restrained fire.

When she'd spotted the thing, carelessly draped across one of the chairs in the living room, it hadn't taken her very long to figure out who it belonged to. It was a woman's obviously. She was the only woman in the household, and it wasn't hers. It couldn't be Grandmother's, or Alice's. The style was all wrong — glimmering silk stitched into lacy patterns, bright colours forming delicate flowers one after another after another. No, most of the women who had any reason to be here wouldn't be caught dead wearing that. It was a simple process of elimination to figure out who it belonged to.

Hollis Fawley. Her father's insipid little twit of a lover. She must have been over at some point yesterday, forgotten it here.

So far, Charissa had barely even met the woman — a few times around other Fawleys, she'd accompanied Dad to a couple of her duelling things, but other than that. She didn't think she'd seen her here yet. She was pretty sure that was by design. Despite how dramatic Perry had been about it in a few of his letters, it was very obvious the two were trying to be considerate of their feelings on the matter. It was obvious they were trying not to force Hollis's presence on Charissa and her brothers, going about it all gradually, allowing them time to grow accustomed to the idea. Far as she could tell, they were even doing their best to avoid any implication of their obvious intentions. One would have to be blind to not see they were planning on marrying eventually — not for a couple years, probably, but in time — but they weren't flaunting it, if that made sense.

To be completely honest, Charissa didn't care _too_ much. She didn't particularly like Hollis. She was boring. She did think it was somewhat odd that Hollis was actually closer to her own age than Dad's, if only by a few months, but that didn't really bother her. Mostly just odd because Charissa thought she was now older than Hollis had been when her affair with Dad had first started, but that was more a curiosity than anything truly relevant. And, well, so long as Hollis didn't start expecting Charissa to respect her as any sort of authority, which there was no sign of so far, she didn't see why it should make any difference. So what if her father went off shagging some woman, even remarried? She didn't see how that was her business.

Especially since she thought Mum was actually happier now. If she were miserable over it, that would probably be enough for Charissa to care, but she wasn't, so she didn't.

Not for herself, anyway. She didn't care, but _Perry did_. Charissa was supposed to take care of her little brothers, she couldn't count how many times Mum had told her that. It was one of the more important Rules. Linden was dealing with it fine — acting out a bit, sure, but that was just Linden being Linden. But Perry was a different story. He _really_ didn't like Hollis. He rather hated her, in fact. Petty, childish hatred, for the simple fact that she wasn't their mother, but still hatred. Fawley made Charissa's soft, gentle little brother sad.

And she had been in their house.

That made Charissa very, _very_ angry.

It wasn't entirely rational. She knew that. Perry would have to get used to the idea eventually, yes, if not Hollis it would be someone else. And, Hollis had every right to be in their house. It wasn't like she was invading somewhere she wasn't allowed. Hell, she'd almost certainly be moving in eventually. But she knew Perry would hate it, just the thought that she'd been here, knew he'd be miserable just having to tolerate her existence.

It wasn't rational. But the woman was making her little brother miserable, and that made her furious. She couldn't help it.

Which was why Charissa was standing here, in the living room of her home, staring at an expensive silk shawl, contemplating the murder of her father's lover.

It wouldn't be particularly difficult. Hollis wasn't a total airhead, of course, but her magical knowledge was mostly academic, and weighted heavily toward alchemy and enchanting, that sort of thing. She couldn't fight. While she had been trained in basic occlumency like most nobility, it wasn't perfect, flawed enough she was still vulnerable to a true legilimens. Dad had been foolish enough to gift Linden the Cloak for his twelfth birthday, and Charissa knew where he kept it. It wouldn't be difficult at all. It would be easy. Swipe the Cloak, apparate to the edge of the Fawley manor's wards. Slip her way through, invisible — she was already keyed into the wards at the manor, they wouldn't repel her — track down Hollis. She could do it any number of ways. Slip her a deadly potion one way or another, simply curse her in the back, stun her and transfigure her into something she could carry out, dispose of her elsewhere at her leisure. Plant a deep compulsion to kill herself. Any of them would work, Hollis was practically defenceless.

She could do it. It would be _easy_.

But she shouldn't.

She knew what her mother would say. Murder was against the Rules, after all. And there was no doubt it would be murder. Hollis might be making Perry miserable, but her crimes weren't great enough for killing her to be in Perry's defence. It would be simple murder. And she wasn't supposed to do that. Not to mention Dad would be...displeased with her, to say the least. She was also supposed to keep him as happy with her as was feasible as well, that was also in the Rules. So she shouldn't.

And she wouldn't.

But she wanted to. Fucking hell, she wanted to. She knew that said something unfortunate about her own character, that she found the idea of murdering her father's lover over something so minor so very tempting, but she didn't particularly care. These days she was used to the idea that she was not a nice person. She was even tempted to destroy this stupid shawl, which was just petty. Having trouble stopping herself from setting it on fire, in fact. She wouldn't, though, since that was against the Rules too.

She could fantasise about it, yes, but she wouldn't actually do it. Which was interesting enough on its own, since she couldn't remember ever legitimately wanting someone dead until right this moment. It was fascinating, in a way, that she could hate someone this much.

If she set Hollis on fire, would her screams be higher or lower than Draco's? She was a woman, but Draco had been a child. Hmm. She could already hear the crackling of the flames...

No, wait, that was the floo. Charissa turned to the fire in time to catch Hermione appearing in a flash of green. Ah, shite. She scrambled to regain some semblance of control over herself, using mind magic tricks Mum had started her on to slide her hatred and rage somewhere in the background, where it couldn't touch her magic. Even in ordinary mages, sufficiently intense emotions could cause a variety of magical manifestations, but Charissa was not exactly an ordinary mage. She knew she'd scared Hermione with it in the past — even so far back as second year, before the Blessing — so it was best to prevent it from happening in her presence if at all possible. She didn't see anything too obvious she'd done on accident, but she knew she did make her surroundings cold when she was angry, and she herself couldn't feel it happening, so she shot off a couple quick warming charms at the air around her. By how uncomfortable the heat felt, muggy and slippery against her itching skin, that was probably a good call.

'Oh. Charissa.'

She blinked at the strained, bleak tone on Hermione's voice. She didn't look well either, cheeks pinked and puffy, hair exceptionally messy, eyes reddened. 'What happened? Do I need to hurt someone?'

She jumped when Hermione let out a sharp, sudden, shockingly loud laugh. Not a pleasant laugh, snide and dark. 'Well, of course that would be the first thing you say.'

'It was a joke.' Mostly, anyway. If Hermione needed her to hurt someone she'd gladly do it, obviously, but she didn't expect Hermione to ever ask her to. Hermione had seemingly always been a bit uncomfortable remembering that time she'd set Draco on fire, and he'd deserved it, enough Charissa hadn't even been punished for it.

'Right.' Hermione shook her head, clearly exasperated. 'No. I told you a few days ago I needed to think. I did. Now we need to talk.'

Charissa blinked to herself for a second. Oh. She'd somehow failed to notice she hadn't even heard from Hermione for, what, two or three days. She'd spent most of it with Mum — they were trying to pack in as much progress in her apprenticeship as they could before September came around, when arranging lessons would become far more complicated. Runic casting might not be very physically or magically draining, but it was more of a mental strain than most other magics she knew, and their practice duels certainly took care of the rest anyway. She'd been exhausted enough she hadn't really noticed.

Those practice duels were a bit frustrating. Even with how much younger she was, she could overpower Mum in a straight contest without too much difficulty. The Blessing _was_ cheating. But Mum was too quick, too clever, could counter anything Charissa came up with before she was even done casting it, slip to an undefended side and knock her out before she even felt her coming. Despite her frankly unfair power advantage, she'd still never beaten her mother, not even once. It was frustrating.

So, she hadn't really had much time to consider what would happen when Hermione was done thinking. She should have made time. It probably wasn't wise going into whatever conversation they were going to be having here completely unprepared. Especially since she wasn't great at saying the right things even day to day. She'd just have to improvise. 'All right, then. Upstairs?' she said, starting to turn away.

'No, I—' Hermione broke off, clearing her throat, obviously avoiding Charissa's eyes. The occlumency shuttering her thoughts was shifting and fluttering, but not enough for Charissa to get anything through it without actively concentrating, just making Charissa's skin crawl, like a grating screech in her ears. Unpleasant. Hermione gathered herself after a moment, made for one of the chairs right there in the living room. 'Let's just stay here. We're alone, right?' she said, giving the shawl a confused stare as she sat.

'Hollis forgot that here.' Hermione nodded — she'd only met Hollis in passing a couple times, but she did know what was going on with that. 'And we do have the house to ourselves, for a couple hours, at least.'

'Right, good. That's good.' And let out a long, thick sigh, arms wrapped about her stomach. Still not meeting Charissa's eyes, staring blankly at the floor. Something was wrong, something was very obviously wrong. Hermione had clearly been crying — Charissa might not understand why people did that most of the time, but she could recognise the signs easily enough — and she was acting all nervous and...avoidant? It was odd. It was almost like she was afraid—

Charissa, halfway to the chair across from Hermione, froze in mid-step, blinking to herself. She turned to fully face Hermione, remaining on her feet. 'You're breaking up with me.' It wasn't a question.

Hermione didn't answer for a long moment. She just stared down at the rug below her feet, biting the inside of her lip, idly playing with the hem of her shirt. Finally, her voice thick and strained, she said, 'Yeah, I– I think I am.'

'You think?'

She shrugged, the motion somewhat jerky. 'I don't know. It's not outside the realm of possibility you could respond to...my concerns in a way to convince me otherwise. I sincerely doubt you will, but I'll admit it's possible. So, I think I am.'

'Ah.' No, she didn't think she would be able to either. She wasn't great with emotionally sensitive conversations, she'd learned that a long time ago. To be honest, she'd be shocked if she didn't make it worse. But, there was no use delaying it, this would have to happen eventually either way. Despite herself, she was already getting a bit anxious, her blood running hotter through her veins, loud in her ears. This was going to go badly, she just knew it. But she forced it back as well as she could, taking a long breath through her nose, gave Hermione a nod — she wasn't actually looking, but not the point. 'All right, then. Is this about Hesper?'

'Not just Hesper, no. You're right, I, I knew you'd be getting married eventually, that... I'd be able to deal with that, if we could all come to a, an understanding, I guess. For a time, not forever. But...' After a short pause, Hermione taking a long, centring breath, her voice shifted somewhat, her inflection changing slightly. She was imitating someone, Charissa realised, quoting something someone else had said verbatim from memory. 'Well, you know Sorcha, pretty sure she's one. I wouldn't be shocked if her girlfriends got in on it at some point, so the elder Prewett and the Gryffindor Moon. Tracey, definitely, her most often I think; don't hold me to it, but I'm pretty sure _not_ Daphne, uncertain. And Bones, the one in your year. Those are the ones I know about, wouldn't be surprised if there are more.' Her recitation over, Hermione's eyes snapped back up to hers, slightly unsteady but still unyielding. 'Are there? More, I mean.'

For long seconds, Charissa couldn't even breathe, blankly staring back into Hermione's eyes, too shocked to move. Who told her? Luna would normally be her first suspect — she knew Luna very much disapproved of what she'd been doing — but assuming Hermione was accurately reproducing the way whoever it was spoke, she wasn't a possibility. Too sharp and quick, didn't sound like Luna at all. Whoever it was had referred to Sorcha, Tracey, and Daphne by their given names, but Kelsey, Lily, and Susan by their surnames, which limited possibilities somewhat, and would have to be someone Hermione knew at least somewhat— 'Bella,' she said, even as the realisation set in. 'Bella told you.'

Hermione didn't respond to that much, just looked faintly annoyed. Perhaps just because she didn't like Bella, or because Charissa hadn't actually answered the question, pick one.

But that was enough for her, it had been Bella. Not too surprised by that, come to think of it. Someone who was close enough to know about at least some of Charissa's exploits, have some reason to be in the same room as Hermione, but also didn't care the slightest bit what Hermione thought of her. Not a shock. 'Tracey Davis. Susan Bones. Kelsey Prewett. Sorcha Selwyn. Clement Tugwood. Lily Moon really shouldn't count — she doesn't like me much, I barely touched her. Katie Bell, once. Mītsavī.' Charissa hesitated a moment, trying to remember Metsīv's surname. Did she even have a surname? She couldn't remember how Kemetic names worked. 'That's all of them.' Unless she was forgetting anyone, which she would admit was possible, but she was pretty sure.

Not entirely sure what that expression was. Anger, maybe? Whatever it was, it was fighting with a bit of confusion, finally enough to make it to Hermione's voice. 'Mītsavī?' Not pronounced quite correctly, but close.

'She's Kemetic.'

'Uh-huh.' Then a look of far sharper confusion took over her face. 'Wait a second, Clement Tugwood is a boy!'

She blinked. 'Well, yes.'

For a few seconds, Hermione stared up at her, mouth working in silence. 'I... Just, I thought you were a lesbian.' There was a slight hint of accusation in the words, as though Charissa had deceived her somehow. Which was baffling, but okay.

'I prefer women, obviously,' Charissa said, shrugging a little, 'considering the eight-to-one count so far. It's not an exclusive preference, though.' If it were, she might have resisted the whole idea of marriage far more strongly than she had. Didn't seem tactful to point that out, somehow.

'Right.' Hermione was silent another moment, leaning forward with her face in her hands, taking a few long, shaky breaths. Then she looked back up, and said only, 'Why?'

Oh, well. This question she actually _was_ prepared to answer. She'd been certain this would come up eventually, so she'd considered it. 'At first it was just because, well...' She risked shooting Hermione a quick smirk, hoping even as she was doing it that it wouldn't be too infuriating. It didn't come out quite right, she was too wary and tense, but she tried. 'You might have noticed I have rather more of an appetite than you do, so to speak. It was back in November, and I just... I wanted you. Badly. All the time. I was just getting so _frustrated_ , and nothing I could do on my own was helping. Not for long, in any case. I didn't want to push you, but I was starting... I didn't want to be angry with you, for something you couldn't help.

'So when Tracey offered one day, I took her up on it.' Charissa shrugged. 'It seemed the thing to do. And it did help. Tracey has a couple other lovers herself, so she couldn't always be available when I needed to burn a bit of it off, so I picked up a couple others. It seemed the thing to do. Susan was probably a mistake though,' she muttered, more to herself than anything, though Hermione was obviously still listening. 'She got too... Too sentimental, I guess. I had to cut her off, back in May.'

By the look of it, Hermione had absolutely no idea what to think about this. She obviously wasn't pleased, of course, but by the crooked, confused expression she was giving her she wasn't too strongly settled on anything more specific than that. 'No, you're not really one for sentiment, are you.'

Charissa shrugged again. 'You can get away with it. It's okay if it's you. I'm sure you've noticed by now I don't have the same, I don't know, need for it, whatever. And, I know this might not make a lot of sense to you, that much of the time I probably don't make a lot of sense to you. I don't always make much sense to myself, to be honest. But I know your needs are different than mine. I try to accommodate them, as much as I can, though since I don't have them myself I'm not great at anticipating what's needed. I know I've been missing a few steps here and there, you expecting me to say or do things, I don't even know what most of the time. And I don't make that effort with anyone else, and I don't let them get all...' What word should she even use here? This shite was confusing. '...squishy with me. Just you. If it's what you need to be happy, I don't care. I'd prefer to make you happy if at all possible. Though, it's starting to become clear I've fucked that up rather badly.'

Hermione snorted out another black laugh. 'Yeah, you think?' Then she sighed, scrubbing her face with her hands, fingers and bushier-than-usual hair hiding her expression entirely. 'Just... _Jesus_ , Charissa, you're so _ridiculous_ , you know that?'

Despite the situation, Charissa couldn't help smiling a little. 'I believe I have been informed, yes.'

'I just... I don't know how you could...' Hermione sighed again, voice thick, muttered under her breath something that sounded suspiciously like, 'bloody psychopath.'

For a long moment she could only stare. 'How do you know about that?'

'Bella.'

'But I didn't tell Bella. I haven't told anyone.' She hadn't really planned on telling anyone, to be honest. What went on in her head didn't seem like their business — she realised that was a bit hypocritical, what with being a legilimens and all, but still. And she would hardly expect most anyone to react well in any case. It had just seemed simpler to keep it to herself.

Hermione shrugged. 'She figured it out herself.'

Oh. Well. Apparently Charissa hadn't been pulling off as solid of a normal-person act as she'd thought. Oops. How many other people had put together there was something wrong with her? This...could be a very serious problem, now that she thought of it...

'Not denying it, then? I expected you to, if I brought it up.'

Charissa shrugged. 'Mum used the word "sociopath", actually, but I'm not sure what the difference is anyway.'

'Of course.' Letting out another sigh, Hermione leaned back into the chair, hands dropping from her face. Charissa flinched at the tears shimmering in her red-rimmed eyes. Voice breathy and tense, softer and more wavering than it should be, Hermione said, 'You've been lying to me the whole time, then. The whole time, since we met.'

Dammit. She hadn't meant to... Shite. That was all, just shite. Wariness turning each syllable abnormally slow, like tinkering with an enchantment that could blow up in her face at any moment, Charissa said, 'Not since we met. At least, not consciously. I didn't know what I am back then. I mean...' Charissa shrugged — why did this have to be so complicated? She'd never had to figure out how to put this into words before. How her whole body seemed to be fucking _itching_ at the moment, sand grinding across her skin, was really not helping her concentration. 'I don't know. I knew some of the things I would say weren't... I knew they were empty words. But I thought they were empty words for everyone, just things that were said. Just part of the social dance, you know, showing regret, or gratitude, or whatever, as appropriate for the situation. It took a long time for it to occur to me that other people feel things I don't. Those things I did and said that didn't mean anything, empty gestures because I was supposed to, other people do and say them because they feel things that motivate them to. I didn't fully understand that until recently. I might have assumed my _priorities_ were different than most people's, sure, but it's a long leap to go from the easy observation that I simply don't care about the same things other stupid children do to _there is something wrong with me_. I didn't really figure that out until, what, March?

'I actually thought you were like me, you know, at first.' Hermione gave her a watery look of disbelief at that, so Charissa smirked back. 'I did. See, you didn't care about all the stupid shite most everyone else did. I thought... I don't know. It was nice. But, of course, I was wrong. You really do just have different priorities than other stupid children. To simplify things quite a bit, you're eccentric, I'm defective. The two just happened to look sort of similar at the time, superficially.'

Hermione still didn't look like she believed her. Either that, or she was just confused, it could be hard to tell. Without peeking into her mind, anyway, which would be a bad idea. Hermione was good enough with her occlumency by now she'd certainly feel Charissa in there, probably wouldn't react well. After a moment of just staring at her, she finally muttered, 'That wasn't a no.'

'No, it wasn't a no. Of course I've lied to you, I lie to everyone. Well,' she said with a shrug, 'except Mum, for the most part. But, it's not...' She forced out a harsh sigh, lifted a hand to run her fingers through her hair before stopping herself, wrapping her arms over her stomach instead. Her hair was plaited back right now anyway, that wouldn't have gone right. 'I don't do it out of cruelty, Hermione. Sometimes you just don't want to know what I think. What I feel, or _don't_ feel. I just... I lie, yes, but only so I can say something that wouldn't hurt. I'm just trying to make you happy. The truth won't make you happy.

'This isn't fun right now. This conversation, I mean. I'm being honest here, and I know it's hurting you, and I kind of hate it.'

With a challenging raise of a single eyebrow — which clashed a bit with the rest of her expression, probably not as effective as she would like — Hermione said, 'Do you really?'

'Well, yeah,' Charissa said, shrugging. 'There's a reason I usually avoid it, you know. I'm not supposed to hurt you, but I am, I can see I am, and I knew it was going to happen eventually and like a bloody idiot I did nothing to mitigate it ahead of time. I'm a bit angry with myself right now.'

'Just, angry, not...'

'Guilty?' She shook her head, then paused, frowning to herself. 'I mean, I don't think so. What is guilt supposed to feel like? Maybe it is just self-directed anger. I guess I don't know.'

Charissa didn't really know what else to say, so she just waited, watching Hermione scrub at her eyes with the back of her hand. Trying not to be too annoyed. Not annoyed with Herm– Well, mostly not annoyed with Hermione, anyway. It was somewhat frustrating that Hermione was about to break up with her for reasons she didn't entirely understand. Possibly not the word. Sympathise with? If she'd been _trying_ to hurt Hermione, sure, she'd understand then. If she'd been...she didn't know, intentionally sabotaging Hermione, or House Cherwell, one way or another. But she hadn't been.

She didn't understand. She didn't understand why her shagging other people should bother Hermione at all. It wouldn't bother her if it were Hermione doing it — as long as they weren't hurting her, and as long as they understood Charissa came first, she didn't care. She didn't understand why that hurt her. It was obvious it did, but it made no sense. She wasn't sure why her telling all those countless little harmless lies should matter. It wasn't like she'd been covering anything Hermione really needed to know. Hermione didn't need to know when she thought she was being annoying, or when she thought she was being silly or stupid, what she really thought about Hermione's parents, or their friends, or whatever preference or opinion Hermione had just expressed Charissa didn't get. It would hurt her to be told those things. To be honest, Charissa couldn't fathom why — anger, sure, in some situations she could see that, but that wasn't the same thing. No, Hermione was happier not knowing.

What, should she have been honest about everything? Like, if they hadn't had this conversation coming up, should she have gone right to talking about just how tempted she was to murder her father's girlfriend? She somehow doubted Hermione wanted to hear that. Hermione hadn't actually asked, perhaps not wanting to think about it anymore, but exactly why she was still seeing other people hadn't come up. She didn't think Hermione wanted details about what she did to them. _Especially_ Tugwood. She wouldn't like it. She'd probably be horrified, disgusted. But doing it to other people, hurting other people meant she could work her more violent drives out elsewhere, so she had the patience to be gentler with Hermione. It was calculated. Charissa doubted Hermione would understand that.

Not to mention that, if Charissa could get her to understand, she'd probably just end up scared of her. Hermione didn't want to know. She really didn't.

Actually...

Come to think of it? She was rather annoyed with Hermione. She knew it was irrational, but she just couldn't help herself. She didn't see how any of this was her fault. She'd _tried_. She'd tried to accommodate Hermione's normal person feelings and expectations as well as she could. Which wasn't easy. Hermione not letting her into her head on a regular basis — or at all, until recently — only made it even more difficult than it had to be. She'd done the best she could to please her with what she had, accounting for what she was. It was clear she'd failed, but she hadn't done any of this maliciously. But she just _knew_ Hermione would be reframing it in her head right now, that she was a victim in this situation, that Charissa was an evil madwoman who had manipulated her for...reasons? She couldn't imagine what her own motivations for doing that could possibly be. Hermione would probably know it was irrational even as she was thinking it, but she would still be thinking it — post-relationship thoughts of other people's she'd witnessed before suggested so. People liked to believe they were in the right, that they'd been wronged. She knew that. And it annoyed her.

Of course, it wasn't like Hermione could help it either. She couldn't help that she was hurt for reasons Charissa didn't understand. Hermione hadn't chosen to be a normal person with fragile normal person feelings any more than Charissa had chosen to not be. She couldn't help her reaction to any of this. It wasn't her fault either. She might even know it's irrational. But knowing something is irrational doesn't make it go away.

So, yes, being perfectly honest with herself, she _was_ annoyed with Hermione. But she still thought she was annoyed at the situation in general more.

It had to have been a couple minutes, and Hermione still hadn't said anything. Still wasn't looking at Charissa either, staring at the floor or the walls, wiping here and there at her leaking eyes, occasionally sniffling. It sounded sort of horrible even saying it in her own head, but Charissa was getting tired of this. She wanted this conversation to be over already. 'If you're working up the courage to say we're done, you don't have to. I understand.'

'I...' Hermione broke off immediately, taking a second to clear her throat. When she did manage to speak, her voice was unsteady and thick and honestly somewhat hard to understand, but she managed. 'And you won't... I mean, you're not angry?'

She shrugged. 'Of course I'm angry.' She caught the flinch cross Hermione's face, and couldn't help glaring at her a little. ' _Really_ , Hermione? Are you _really_ worried I'm going to, what, curse you in revenge for breaking up with me or something?' Hermione didn't have to actually say anything, her thoughts were clear by the look on her face. 'Why would I ever—?' Charissa cut the thought off with a sigh, lifting a hand to rub at her forehead. This was _so stupid_. 'Well, I suppose it's only fair. I don't understand you much of the time, it almost seems appropriate for you not to understand me at all.'

'Charissa, I'm sorry, I—'

'No, don't bother.' She didn't care if Hermione was sorry. Besides, she was apologising because she thought she'd hurt her, and Charissa wasn't hurt. She was just... This was _so stupid!_ This whole situation was stupid! The _entire reason_ she'd put all that effort into doing all those things Hermione was taking so personally was to _avoid_ hurting her. Why, _why_ , why would she _ever_ hurt Hermione _on purpose?_ Just, how could Hermione think she would do that? Sure, she _could_ , she could end Hermione in a blink if she wanted to, but she _didn't_. Had she ever shown the slightest sign she ever would? Arguably, the most aggressive thing she'd ever done to Hermione was still that time she'd cast a sleeping charm on her without her permission, and that was years ago. She just...

She didn't get it. Hermione made no sense. It was almost like Hermione didn't realise she was hers. Which was a bit silly of her. Charissa had told her so, after all, more than once.

Though, come to think of it, it _was_ possible Hermione had no idea what she meant by that. Not that this was the time to explain. Probably wouldn't be taken well at the moment.

Hermione let out a few indistinguishable noises that were probably attempts at speech, but she stopped a moment later, rubbing at her eyes again. 'And I still want to...you know...be friends.' Her voice cracked harder on the last word, and Hermione had to break off for a moment, furiously rubbing at her face, hissing under her breath. 'But I, I'll need time. I can't— It hurts to look at you right now. So... If that's okay.'

'Yes, that's fine.' Not entirely sure why that _wouldn't_ be fine, to be honest, but no real use asking. 'How long do I wait?'

'I'll come to you when...when I'm ready.'

'All right. I'll wait.' Charissa opened her mouth to say she'd continue making sure the worse arseholes among their classmates didn't forget Hermione was an unacceptable target in the meanwhile, but changed her mind at the last instant. It was possible Hermione hadn't even realised she'd been doing that — it didn't take much effort at all, just a few polite requests or not-so-subtle threats where appropriate, so Charissa had never even thought to mention it. Knowing Hermione, she might get all offended over the implication, claim she could take care of it herself despite all evidence to the contrary. Charissa _certainly_ hadn't forgotten why she'd had to punish Draco back in second year. Probably best to leave it unsaid.

With a few last, strained words, Hermione was vanishing back out the floo, and Charissa was alone.

Which was probably a good thing. Because she was angry, and tense, and she rather wanted to break something.

Without really thinking about it, her eyes fell on that stupid shawl. She summoned it to her hand with a twitch of a finger, looked over the fancy thing with what she knew was an unreasonable degree of hatred. _ð'Vurgen_ , this thing was so bloody overdone. All delicate and pretty and colourful. And Fawley leaving it here like a complete fucking idiot, where _Linden_ lived, she was just asking for it to be stolen, or ruined.

Or burned to ash. Shoving aside the last shreds of her hesitation, that this was something she _really_ shouldn't be doing, probably violated the Rules somehow, she didn't care, she was too angry. Fire burst from her fingers with a flicker of magic and a rush of rage, black-purple flames crawling over the expensive cloth in eerie silence, reducing it to nothingness in bare seconds.

A moment later, Charissa cringed, wrapping shaking arms around her waist. That had been a mistake.

She shouldn't have done that. She shouldn't have cast black magic out of anger when she was already this close to the edge of her self-control. Bad idea. She could feel it, slipping up and down her spine in exhilarating tingles, itching throughout her blood, tines of ice and fire snapping at the air around her. Bad, bad, bad idea. This was too much. It was too much, and casting just a _little_ bit of magic had only made her feel worse. She needed to vent all this whatever it was going on in her head some other way, breaking things wouldn't help.

Before she even entirely realised what she was doing, she was walking up to the floo, a call of an address later propelled through swirling green fire. She landed harder than she usually did, the magic leaking off of her pushing against the magic of the floo, but she got her balance back with a couple quick hops against hardwood floor. 'Denna.'

She only had to wait an instant for a familiar house-elf to pop into existence in the middle of the modest living room. 'Can I be helping you, Miss Charissa?'

'Is Tracey here?'

'Young Mistress is being with Miss Daphne.'

Well, of course she was. Was Tracey ever _not_ off somewhere with Daphne? 'Where?'

'Denna remembers they was going to muggle Birmingham. Denna can ask—'

'Never mind.' Charissa reached again for the floo powder, and was off without another word.

Kelsey was out with one of her cousins. Sorcha was meeting with a charms master about a potential apprenticeship. Tugwood was unavailable. She even checked Bell — her mother had no fucking clue where exactly she was, apparently, but she wasn't at home. Dammit! The _one bloody time_ she really needed a distraction, and everyone was busy! Fucking hell...

She'd just need to think of someone else, then. She could do that. There had to be someone. Ignoring Bell's mother warily watching her as she paced in her foyer, trying to restrain her magic from damaging anything, Charissa sifted through everyone she knew in her mind. Someone who knew her well enough they wouldn't be entirely thrown. Someone a bit odd in the head themselves, so they wouldn't be phased by the...harsher things she'd be inclined to do. Someone not too sentimental, who wouldn't take it too seriously, who wouldn't expect her to—

Charissa snapped to a stop when the perfect choice appeared in her head. She was an idiot. She again made for the floo, seconds later stumbling onto white marble. She didn't even have to open her mouth to call for an elf, Kreacher was already snapping into existence right in front of her. 'Miss Charissa. May Kreacher be helping?'

'I'm here to see Dora. Is she available?'

Kreacher nodded and, without even waiting for confirmation, gave a sharp snap of his fingers, a dizzying wave of translocation magic falling over Charissa in an instant. Not that she was exactly surprised — Kreacher never had been one for faffing about.

When the world slid back into existence around her, Charissa saw she'd been dropped straight into a surprisingly normal office. Surprisingly normal because, of course, it was _Dora's_ , the woman herself writing at the desk. Or, the girl herself, anyway. For whatever reason, Dora seemed to prefer smaller, younger forms when she hadn't any particular need to appear older. The woman was, what, twenty-two now, but the sharp-faced girl looked no older than maybe nine, slight enough there was probably a cushion on the chair to prop her up high enough to write, identifiable mostly be the vibrant blue-purple hair and reddish eyes, which Charissa figured meant she was annoyed about whatever that was she was working on. And, well, the feeling of inexhaustible magic meticulously restrained, bright as the sun and cold as ice, but Dora always felt like that to her these days. She jumped at Charissa's sudden appearance, saying something, clearly, her mouth was moving.

But Charissa wasn't listening. A few steps brought her around the desk, her hand dipping under Dora's chin. With a combined effort of muscle and magic, she yanked Dora up out of her chair, shoved her against the wall behind. She started bringing her mouth in toward Dora's ear, only slightly disappointed by the form she happened to be in at the moment.

But that was all the time Dora needed to get over her surprise. A subtle sense of whistling motion, Dora's hand falling against her chest, was all the warning she had before a hard, heavy nothing slammed into her, forcing her away, hips sharply meeting the desk nearly tipping her onto her back. Hmm, that could work. She shot off a featherlight charm, then immediately followed it with a summoning, Dora letting out a startled yelp as she was whipped off her feet, straight into Charissa. With the featherlight on, the impact wasn't very much, but it was still enough for Charissa to turn their combined momentum into a roll onto the desk, parchments crinkling and ink wells scattering under them.

In barely a second she had Dora pinned, glaring up at her through furious red eyes. Charissa lifted her hands away to reach for the hem of her own dress, Dora taking the opportunity to lean up a bit, try to slide out from under her, but Charissa's hand immediately snapped back to her throat, slamming her down against the desk. Dora snarled, ' _Ow_ , Charissa! What the _fuck_ are you...'

Charissa had a second's warning, sparks dancing along Dora's fingers in her peripheral vision. She barely got her wand out in time. The air was abruptly split with screaming, crackling lightning, bolts a blinding white mercilessly crashing against the pale orange of Charissa's frantically-cast shield charm. This shield did work with most elemental magic — many white and black magics as well, in fact — but the force of the spell landing was still enough to fling her into the air and across the room.

And this shield, unfortunately, did _not_ work against physical impacts.

Charissa's breath was knocked out of her when she finally crashed to a halt, books and trinkets spilling over her arms and head. She heard something crack — something in the bookshelf, she hoped, not one of her ribs. She barely managed to not collapse to the floor, wincing at agony pulsing from the welts on her back, gasping and dizzy. That could have gone better.

'What the bloody hell was _that_ for, Charissa?' Still sitting on the desk, flatly glaring at her, Dora pointed at the back of her head. ' _Ow.'_

Charissa shot a healing charm she'd practised on Metsīv at her own back a couple times, easing a bit when the throbbing instantly vanished. 'I don't know, what did it seem like?'

'Well, it _seemed_ like you just burst in unannounced on me in the middle of boring House business shite and made a decent attempt at ravaging me.'

Charissa failed to hold in a snort at the melodramatically sarcastic tone Dora was using. Silly girl. 'Maybe it was what it seemed like.'

'Oh?' Dora tilted her head a bit, a smirk spreading across her lips. 'That's odd. I seem to remember someone saying something about us being cousins, that it would be _creepy_. Wasn't that you? I'll admit, sometimes I can't keep all you little buggers straight.'

She wasn't wrong — Charissa _had_ said something to that effect before. Of course, she hadn't actually thought it was creepy, just thought that she _should_ have thought it was creepy, so she'd said so. And anyway, she'd been, what, ten or something at the time, that didn't count. Keeping her eyes steady on Dora's, she started pulling at the ties on her dress. 'You see, I'm in a very bad mood.'

'Are you now?'

'Yes. And you're gonna help make it better.' After a bit of necessary fiddling around, she whipped her dress off over her head, almost losing her balance when it caught about her shoulders for a moment. She gave the bundle of cloth a kick once she was free, stupid thing.

'Am I now?' The tone of amusement was very clear, Dora wasn't doing a fucking thing to hide it.

'Yes, you are.' A moment later her slip was following her dress. 'Unless you have something you would rather do, of course,' she said, even as she kicked her knickers over onto the pile.

'Hmm.' Dora didn't move for long moments — save for her eyes shamelessly sliding along Charissa head to toe, anyway. Which was somewhat annoying, annoying enough Charissa thought she felt ice tracing across the air, but she ignored it, just kept staring back into Dora's eyes. Finally, Dora let out a long sigh, sounding very long-suffering and put-upon. 'Fine, fine. I _suppose_ I can take the time to fix my baby cousin's little problem.' Dora flicked her wand around at the entrances, some sort of palings falling into place, Charissa didn't recognise them. 'I should probably slip into someone more comfortable, hmm? Wouldn't want to go around giving people the impression you're a paedophile or something.'

She rolled her eyes.

Giving her wand a tiny little wave, Dora's skin broke into ripples, her body shifting and expanding even as she transfigured her clothes. When the change finished, Charissa let out a snort. Apparently Dora had read those same novels she'd been sending Charissa for years for her own silly reasons — she looked exactly like the woman on one of the trashier ones (which was saying something). Long, strawberry blonde hair in unnaturally smooth ringlets, bright, almost overlarge eyes a deep blue, a deep red, silky négligée blurring the features beneath somewhat, but not hiding really her figure at all. Her rather distracting figure. It wasn't very often Charissa saw in person a woman this...voluptuous? That was a good word, voluptuous. It was distracting.

Voice high and bright, Dora said, 'Yes, this seems far more in character for the order of the day, don't you think?' Her wand vanishing again, Dora slipped off the edge of the desk, standing with arms crossed under her chest and hip cocked to the side, the motion setting thin cloth fluttering against her legs. Yes, very distracting. 'Get on, then, my most forwardest little cousin. Even use your wand if you like. Go ahead and take me.' Her smirk twitching wider, head tilting a bit to the side, hair shifting over her shoulders. 'If you think you can, that is.'

In the instant before she sprung into motion, Charissa only had one real response to the taunting challenge.

She just smiled.

* * *

Jyotsăna (Sanskrit: ज्योत्सना) — _Pronounced roughly "jyoht-suh-nah" or "jyohts-na" (IPA:_ /d͡ʑʲo:t̪̚.s(ə).na:/ _), meaning "moonlight"._

[ODD, RAD, CD, APD, NPD] — _Just to clarify, these are oppositional defiant disorder, reactive attachment disorder, conduct disorder, antisocial personality disorder, and narcissistic personality disorder. For those not in the know, ODD is a childhood behavioral condition characterised by irritable mood, deliberately annoying or insubordinate behavior, and frequent vindictiveness._

* * *

 _No idea where all those words came from. I don't understand._

 _I wrote a long ramble here preempting any comments I might get about the omniglot ability being overpowered, but, you know what? Fuck it, summary. I only designed it the way I did to account for Crouch Senior canonically speaking 150~200 languages (lol wut), and Crouch Junior somehow fooling Albus fucking Dumbledore into thinking he was really one of his friends (pull the other one). Yes, in the right hands it might be the ultimate Slytherin life hack, but Bella's are **not** the right hands — she's more likely to find juuuust the right way to royally piss someone off than turn them into one of her little minions. Bella mostly uses her insights into people's personalities to explore new and exciting ways to be as annoying as possible._

 _There. I can finally put this ridiculously long chapter to bed. Bluh._

 _Thanks for putting up with my nonsense,  
~Wings_


	36. Fifth Year — September 1st

Perry stepped out of the floo, with ease born of much practice, and gazed around Platform Nine and Three Quarters.

It wasn't any different than it had other times he'd been here, of course. The same train an eye-searing red, the very front hidden behind a lingering cloud of steam, the platform packed with mages of various ages in various forms of dress, from Hogwarts uniforms to formal robes to more casual dress and even muggle clothes here and there, filled with the ear-splitting cacophony of dozens of people chattering, a panoply of animals releasing a dizzying mix of cries. It was a bit _too_ loud, it gave him a headache every time. But, it wasn't any different than it always was.

But it _felt_ different. He couldn't explain exactly how. It just was. Every other time he'd been here, he'd been seeing Charissa off, the last couple times Linden along with her. This time, he was actually going himself. That was new. And even though it didn't _look_ any different... It felt more... He didn't know. More more. More dramatic, more alive. More powerful, in a way he couldn't even explain to himself.

He didn't know what he was thinking. It didn't matter, anyway, he'd just stop now.

He stepped out of the way, people popping out of the floo behind him in a steady stream. After a few moments all the Potters and Longbottoms and Palmers had arrived, and they started off closer to the train. All the adults were chattering, Linden wedged between Dad and Sirius with a crooked grin on his face that could only spell trouble, Neira and Jasper walking hand in hand and whispering to each other, Charissa and Neville with their heads together, muttering about something. Duelling club stuff, he assumed. He'd ended up walking next to Violet just by default, but that was fine. The younger of his muggleborn cousins was starting this year too, and while they weren't excellent friends by any means he didn't mind her too much. The slightly taller girl was practically quivering with excitement, didn't seem inclined to talk at all, but that suited him just fine.

Halfway across the platform, he cringed away from a sudden assault of high shrieking, he wasn't even sure what from, barely stopping himself from clapping his hands over his ears. Did it _really_ have to be so loud here? He hated it every bloody time. He had been practising a bit of magic, wandlessly as taught long-distance by Charissa and wanded only in the last week, but he wasn't _nearly_ good enough to partially deaden his hearing. Maybe he should—

Before he could move to any of the adults to ask, he noticed Charissa turn to look at him over her shoulder. A light flick of her fingers, and he felt a charm settle around his head, the noise of the platform reduced to something far more tolerable. Shooting her a smile, he mouthed, _Thank you_. He didn't really expect her to be able to read lips like that, but making himself heard over all this would be a pain. He was sure she could pick up what he meant to say in his thoughts easily enough.

By the way she just nodded, turned back to her conversation with Neville, she probably had.

Then they had made it to the train, and everyone started on the usual long, drawn-out goodbye. He really didn't know why people felt the need to do this. They weren't really going that far away. If any of the adults wanted to come visit them, they could — it wasn't like it was hard to get to Hogwarts. And they'd be back by winter. No, he didn't entirely get it. He put up with it, though, all of Dad's and Sirius's usual jokes, almost painfully tight hugs from a teary-eyed Peter — he always got like this, Perry didn't get it — the occasional snarky comment from Alice breaking the theme. It just seemed silly and overdone to him. Yes, he loved them. Yes, he'd be going away for a while. But it was only a couple months, and he'd be owling most of them quite a lot. He didn't get what the big deal was.

Despite being the only other person around who seemingly had absolutely no interest in the entire ritual, Charissa kept shooting him odd looks. Surprised he wasn't getting more worked up, maybe? But she wasn't either. Why should he? That seemed kind of silly to him, too.

The whole time, when he wasn't too distracted with someone talking at him or grabbing him, he was looking around, searching the platform. But she wasn't here. Not that he'd expected her to be, he'd admit. Not really. He was a little disappointed anyway.

Finally, they all extricated themselves from the clingy adults, stepping into the shelter of the train. Her shoulders sinking visibly with fading tension, Charissa started leading the way down the hall, making for a compartment nearer the front. They'd only been walking a couple moments when Perry was abruptly encircled from behind with a pair of warm arms, grabbed suddenly enough he couldn't hold back a short yelp. 'Silly little boy,' a very familiar voice muttered into his ear. 'Did you think you could get away without seeing me?'

The grin on his face was wide enough his cheeks hurt a little. 'Mum!' He spun around in her arms, then pulled himself into her, the glass-smooth texture of cloth against his face suggesting Mum was wearing her Auror uniform. He could feel her chuckling under her breath, fingers carding soft through his hair. Something cold deep inside melted, some hole he wasn't usually aware of filled, and after only seconds he felt almost impossibly better than he had a second ago.

He really missed her sometimes. He realised it made him sound, he didn't know, but it was hard. She was hardly ever around anymore. He hated it. Sometimes he hated Dad, and he knew that was unfair, it wasn't really his fault, or not his fault alone, but he couldn't help it. He just missed her.

A few greetings went around between Mum and the other kids, Linden snapping off a quick hug himself — which was sort of awkward, trying to get it in around Perry, but he wasn't moving. Then Charissa was saying, 'Why are you in uniform? I thought you were on leave.'

Mum's arm moved against Perry's shoulder a bit with her shrug. 'I still am on leave. I'm not sure I'm ever going active again, actually.' Perry blinked, turned up to find Mum's face a bit above his head. She didn't look like she was lying. Odd, he hadn't known that. 'But, well, once an Auror always an Auror. They'll still be able to call me in for emergencies, and I can come in to help whenever I like. There's always at least one Auror with the Express, just in case. I volunteered.

'But anyway, you lot should go and get yourself a compartment and all. I just thought I'd say hello.'

'You're not sitting with us?'

Mum turned down to raise an eyebrow at him, her lips twitching a bit with a repressed smile. 'No, sweetheart, I don't think I should. Do you really want to be talking with your friends and future classmates with your mother sitting there?'

She did have a point, he guessed. But he still pouted up at her anyway.

Mum laughed, ruffling his hair a bit before giving him a little push toward the others. 'Go on, then. Good luck and have fun.'

When they started off down the hall again, Perry's steps felt noticeably lighter.

Eventually, Charissa stopped at a compartment, hesitating just a moment before sliding the door in. 'Mind if we join you?'

'How many is "we"?' It was a boy's voice, Perry could tell — low, smooth and sweet like good chocolate — but he didn't recognise him.

'Like it bloody well matters, you silly ponce.' That voice, Perry did recognise: Tracey. Which meant Daphne was probably in there too.

'True, but I might have to sit up.'

'Good. Get your ugly face out of my lap.'

'Aawwww...'

Charissa waved them forward into the compartment, more people tromping in after her than Perry really thought should be able to fit. When he finally took his turn stepping inside, he noticed immediately the compartment was larger than the ones he'd peeked in on the way — they must have variable extension charms on them. While everyone got settled in, Charissa reached into her pockets, pulling out two handfuls of miniaturised trunks. With only a few easy waves of her hands, the air so thick with magic it tingled, Charissa unshrunk all the trunks, floating them up and away into the luggage racks.

'Was the display really necessary, Potter?' This was the owner of the smooth voice from before, a finely-dressed, dark-skinned boy Charissa's age Perry didn't recognise.

Charissa shot him a short glare, sinking into a seat next to Perry. 'Oh, go to hell, Zabini.' It wasn't said with any real anger, the words mostly empty, as though saying a thing that just needed to be said.

The older boy was the Director of Education's bastard son, Perry realised, but he didn't know anything else about him. His face in a bright grin, he gave Charissa a slow wink. 'Company's better here.'

Zabini coughed when Tracey drove an elbow into his side. Not at all gently either, by the look of it. 'Ignore this one,' Tracey said, glancing around at the people who apparently didn't know him as well. 'I'm not sure he can open his mouth without flirting.'

'I don't really need to open—' Zabini let out a sudden, harsh breath when Tracey elbowed him again. 'Would you stop that? That one hurt...' He still didn't sound entirely serious, though, his voice pulled into a high, thin whine, face one of exaggerated misery.

So Perry thought Tracey was justified in simply rolling her eyes at him.

Over the next minutes, people shuffled in and out of the compartment. Various people looked in only long enough to say hello to Daphne or Charissa before walking off again. Linden left almost right away, trunk charmed weightless floating behind him. Neville disappeared to track down some of his Hufflepuff friends. Bella turned up eventually, along with Daphne's younger sister Astoria — the latter looked slightly annoyed Bella was settling in with them, shooting Daphne surly glances, but didn't say anything. Jasper and Neira left shortly after that, a comment from Bella about practising their silencing charms following on their heels. An unfamiliar boy trailed in shortly before the train started off, giving Charissa and Zabini both wary glances before sitting next to Astoria; apparently, this was an Énna Selwyn, who Charissa clarified in a whisper into his ear was one of Hesper's first cousins, but Perry had never met him. Well, probably seen him at one function or another, but never spoken to him. A few seconds after the train jerked into motion, Luna poked her head inside, but only long enough to say hello, vanishing almost the instant Charissa said, 'You're allowed to go find Hermione, you know.'

Perry blinked at that, glanced around the compartment. Himself, Charissa, Bella, Tracey, Daphne, Astoria, Zabini, Selwyn... Hermione wasn't here. Not that he was surprised, really. Sometime during the month, he'd noticed he hadn't seen Hermione for a while, asked Charissa if something was going on — turned out, they'd broken up, and Charissa just hadn't thought to tell any of them. Perry would admit to being a bit disappointed about that. He liked Hermione. She was nice, and not in the overly bubbly and annoyingly over-affectionate way a lot of his cousins could get sometimes. He hadn't at all minded having her as a bonus sister, as Linden joked. He'd written her the day he'd found out, saying he was sorry it hadn't worked out, and if it would be okay with her if they still talked some. They'd sent a few letters back and forth since, but it hadn't occurred to him to ask if he'd see her on the train. He'd assumed she'd be sitting with them.

Oh well. He could always track her down and say hi later. According to everyone, she was almost always in the library, shouldn't be hard to find.

He belatedly noticed he and Charissa were the only non-Slytherins in the compartment. Huh.

After they'd been going for a few minutes, everyone all catching up about what they'd done over the summer, Zabini leaned around Tracey to talk to Daphne. Rather closer into Tracey than necessary doing it, an exasperated look crossing Tracey's face. 'When do we have to go up there anyway?'

Daphne's wand appeared in her hand with the flick of a wrist, a quick twist bringing the glowing face of a clock into existence. 'Fifteen minutes.'

'Are you two the Slytherin prefects?' He was sitting close enough to Charissa he could feel her voice ringing in his head. Practically right against her side, really. Which wasn't entirely necessary, true — he'd seen the compartment change sizes multiple times as people entered and exited — but Charissa didn't seem to mind. She'd even moved her arm out of the way up on the back of the bench for him. Some of the other people had given him somewhat odd looks, but he didn't care.

Daphne glanced down at her own chest, shifting the Hogwarts robes a bit so the previously hidden prefect badge was visible. 'I already got Pansy being snitty at me over it. Apparently, she thought it was hers. For some reason.'

Charissa snorted. 'Can't imagine why. Parkinson is a bitch.'

'Are you talking about who I think you're talking about?' Bella asked, voice slightly strained as it had been ever since she'd seemingly decided the benches here were meant to be sat in upside-down. She looked ridiculous, right across from him and Charissa next to Zabini, her feet stretching toward the luggage rack, back on the seat, head hanging over the edge with the tips of her hair nearly touching the floor. The hem of her dress had ended up falling quite high up her hips, and Perry had noticed half the compartment kept glancing that way. 'Black hair, nasally voice, pathetically follows Draco around everywhere telling him how great he is?'

Zabini snickered, his head turning to rest against Bella's bare leg as he looked down toward her face, which he probably couldn't even see at that angle. 'Even Draco finds that annoying, you know. He complains about it when she's not around.'

'Maybe he should tell her to her face. She might actually stop, then.'

'I think,' Charissa said, 'you're underestimating just how annoying Parkinson is.'

With a smirk, Tracey said, 'Or overestimating just how brave Malfoy is. Telling a girl something she doesn't want to hear? No, I think that might be asking too much of him.'

While most everyone laughed over that — Perry would admit to chuckling a bit himself, Draco was one of his least favourite cousins — Zabini tipped his head a bit, smile tilting into a smirk. Once the compartment had quieted a bit, he said, 'Really, Black? Did you pick purple knickers to match your eyes?'

Bella shrugged, which did look a bit odd with her sitting like that, as though to say, _Obviously_.

A loud, harsh scoff came from Astoria next to Perry. 'Zabini, I am _shocked_. Scandalised, even! Are you looking up thirteen-year-old girls' skirts?'

Zabini's smirk stretched wider. 'I'm looking _down_ it, technically. And, come on, it's not like I haven't shagged thirteen-year-old girls before.'

'You were thirteen yourself at the time too, of course.'

'Well, yes...'

The banter went on for a few more moments, Perry not sure if he should feel amused or embarrassed — Zabini seemed completely incapable of the latter, and he was shameless enough Perry almost felt someone should. Eventually, sudden enough he jumped, the door to the compartment was thrown open with a clang. One figure shot into the small space barely in head of a second, moving at a full sprint and leaping right at Charissa without slowing. A hard impact of what felt like a knee slammed into Perry's leg, making him yelp and flinch away, Charissa was muttering curses at whoever had jumped on her, and everyone was being noisy and confusing, and Perry had absolutely no idea what was going on.

After some seconds, the room stilled somewhat, and Perry finally recognised the first figure, now sitting perched on a visibly annoyed Charissa's lap. It was Alexis Gaunt, her hair somewhat messy and clothes disheveled, face flushed from exertion. A bright grin on her face, she said, 'I win!'

Standing in the middle of the compartment, looking just as tousled and breathless as Alexis, Hesper stood pouting. 'No fair! Someone ran into me back there! I demand a rematch!'

'There will be no such thing.'

Alex turned in her "seat" to give Charissa a big-eyed look to match Hesper's. 'But it's fun! Do you not like fun all of a sudden?'

'I'm sorry, did you want to sit here or not? I can and will curse you off me, you know.'

'Hmm...' Alexis slid back a little, as far as she could go, then shifted in place a little. Perry was still close enough he heard Charissa's breath catch. 'Nah, I can stay. Sorry, Hesper.'

Hesper made a face of comical despair, slipping back and collapsing into a seat next to Selwyn. There was silence for only a short instant before Tracey said, just under a shout, 'What the bloody hell is _that_ about?'

Her smirk looking very odd upside-down, Bella said, 'You don't read the society pages, do you.'

Astoria snorted, hard enough her shoulder shifted to bump into his. 'Have you been introduced? Bella, this is Tracey Davis, my sister's insufferable twat of a girlfriend.'

'Love you too, Tori dear.'

'Charissa is ours now, you see,' Hesper said.

'Yes, ours.' Alex leaned back against Charissa's chest, her head tipping back to rest on Charissa's left shoulder, completely hiding both faces from Perry. 'There is no escape.'

'Charissa Potter is engaged to Hesper bloody Gaunt?' Zabini let out a long, thick sigh. 'Am I jealous? I think I'm jealous.'

An unambiguous gloating feel about his voice, Hesper said, 'As you should. Hmm, I wonder, what should we do with her, now that we have her at—' The sentence cut off, Hesper and Alex letting out a simultaneous yelp of pain.

'Ow!' Alex whined, voice high and nasal. 'Why did you hex me? I wasn't the one saying—' They both screeched again, Alex loud enough Perry winced. 'Hey!'

'That was a lie.' Charissa's voice was low, hard, obviously trying for serious or stern or something, but a bit ruined by the laugh at the edges. 'Lying is not allowed. Liars must be punished.'

'I'm sorry, is that supposed to make us lie _less?_ Seems counterproductive.'

'I'm with the creepy twins on this one.' A crooked grin crossing her face, a light in her eyes, perhaps the single most suggestive expression Perry had seen on anyone's face ever, Tracey shifted in her seat a bit, tipping her head to rest on Daphne's shoulder. 'But I've been told not to talk about it, see.'

Was... Was Daphne _blushing?_ Huh. Perry hadn't realised Daphne Greengrass was physically capable of something so undignified.

This conversation, Perry could barely follow at all. It was far too quick for one thing, bouncing back and forth nearly faster than he could turn his head, and not all of it really made sense. Inside jokes, maybe, just stuff he was missing? Whatever. But that was fine, he didn't really need to understand what was going on. He was only really half-paying attention anyway.

After some minutes, Charissa hexed Alex again, sending her jumping out of her lap, hands unconsciously springing to her bum. Perry managed not to laugh, suffocating it into only a painfully hard snort. Daphne and Zabini were also getting to their feet, making the floor of the compartment a bit crowded. Charissa rummaged in her trunk for a moment, retrieving her prefect badge, which she clipped to her shirt, turning for the door.

But Daphne, who was sort of standing in the way, didn't move. 'You two realise we're supposed to be in our school robes.'

Charissa just stared at her for a second. Her wand appeared in her hand and, after the shortest hesitation, she brought it down with a circular, dragging swish. Shifting and bubbling and twisting, her shirt and trousers transfigured into Ravenclaw Hogwarts robes. Neat trick.

Then everyone turned to Zabini.

Zabini stared back, still and silent for a long moment.

Then he reached for the hem of his shirt, and whipped it over his head.

After long, noisy moments filled with shouting and giggling and whistling, Zabini was changed into his robes, and the three prefects were filing out of the compartment. Charissa gave Perry a last glance on the way out, but then she was gone. The Gaunts left too, now that Charissa was no longer around to annoy, he guessed. Two seconds had barely passed before Astoria was getting up, moving to the opposite side to plop down again between Bella and Tracey. 'You know,' she said, her voice easy and casual, 'you really shouldn't sit like that.'

Bella's lips spread into a smirk. She moved a bit, obviously trying to lean up so Astoria could see that smirk, but she gave up almost right away. 'Oh, really?'

'Yes. It's distracting.'

'Distracting, huh? What about it is so distracting, exactly?'

'This.' Moving fast as lightning, Astoria's hand snapped over to the side, pinching very high up the inside of Bella's thigh. Bella let out a high yelp, jerking away on instinct. Which of course made her unbalance, tipping off the edge of her seat, only her arms stopping her from falling head-first onto the floor. Bella was left cursing, hand on a hip that had come down especially hard, glaring up at Astoria.

Perry had noticed, as Bella's feet had gone over her head, that her knickers were indeed purple. A far lighter shade than her eyes, though.

'What the hell, Tori?' Bella tottered up to her feet, hand still rubbing at her hip, the movement looking a bit awkward and pained. 'You know I'm getting back at you for that.'

'Back at me how? Gonna be sticking your hand up my skirt or something?'

'Well, maybe I will, who knows?'

Astoria just smirked at her.

Grumbling to herself, Bella flopped down to a seat, this time the empty one next to Perry Astoria had just abandoned. She glanced at him quick. He must be looking too amused or something, because her face instantly collapsed into a scowl. 'Oh, shut up, baby Potter. What are you even doing here? Don't you have firstie friends to hang out with?'

He shrugged. He did...or had, he guessed. He did have friends who would be starting Hogwarts this year with him, but... Well, they're Fawleys. And the ones that weren't Fawleys themselves were friends with the Fawleys. He'd been awkward around them ever since he realised his dad and their aunt were, well. He didn't really want to spend too much time around them if he didn't have to at the moment, it was just uncomfortable. Which was pretty cowardly, he guessed, but he couldn't help it.

The rest of the train ride was mostly uneventful. The Slytherins around him had their own conversations, which Perry generally ignored. He pulled a novel out of his trunk, read for most of the way. Charissa and Daphne and Zabini came back eventually — though, they did come and go a bit, prefect stuff — but that didn't change anything, really. He sat reading most of the time, occasionally saying something to Charissa or Bella, glancing up to watch the people coming by for one reason or another. He gathered a lot of people were coming to say hi to Charissa quick. For some reason, he wasn't sure why. Just acknowledging her existence, he guessed. She was a ridiculously powerful witch for her age, he could understand people feeling the need to do something.

At some point, he managed to completely lose track of time, and before he realised what was happening the sky outside the windows had gone dark, and the train was jerking to a stop. Everyone but himself and Charissa quickly fled into the hall, Perry frantically going for his trunk — everyone else had changed into their school robes at some point, but Perry had somehow missed it. He hurriedly changed, all too aware Charissa was sitting there waiting. He didn't want to hold her up too long...

As soon as he was done, he turned to Charissa to find her staring flatly at him, eyes that unnervingly steady way she had. After a short pause, she said, 'Don't worry about the Sorting. Whatever House you're in, it doesn't matter to me, or Mum, or Linden. Dad might whine for a little bit if it's anything but Gryffindor, but he doesn't really mean it, just playing. Don't worry about it too much, and don't argue with the Hat too much. It might try to send you somewhere you're not too pleased with, but just let it. It probably knows you better than you do. You should be happiest wherever it wants to send you.'

Perry did appreciate she was trying. He knew Charissa wasn't really good at this kind of thing, and it didn't really occur to her to do besides. Honestly, when he was looking for comfort, he went to Mum or Neira. Charissa was good for fixing things, not this. But he was still worried. He'd been trying not to think about it, really, his book had been a good distraction. 'What if I'm in Hufflepuff, though?' Everyone always said he would be. Linden had teased him about it incessantly, in fact.

Charissa shrugged. 'Neville's in Hufflepuff,' she said, simply and calmly, as though that were all he needed to know right there. 'And you know Cedric Diggory, right? He's in the upper duelling team, Head Boy this year. He's a Hufflepuff. There's nothing wrong with Hufflepuff.'

Diggory was also a seeker, supposedly a large part of why Hufflepuff had swept the House Quidditch Cup the last few years in a row — Perry only knew this because Jasper and Ginny had complained about it, Charissa and most of her friends didn't care for quidditch. That was just two names, but... Well, they were two very impressive names. Impressive enough for Charissa to think being in Hufflepuff wouldn't be a big deal. That would just have to do. He knew Mum really didn't care what House he was put in, and as long as Charissa wouldn't be, he didn't know, embarrassed or something, he guessed that was fine.

It was possible people worried about this Sorting thing way more than they should, come to think of it.

After a last nod from him and a somewhat reluctant hug from Charissa — not exactly a touchy-feely person, his sister — and Perry was being escorted out of the train, half-shoved at the pack of first years waiting to the side. He didn't say a word the whole walk down to the boats, which might have been a bit rude of him. One of the Fawleys was trying to get his attention. He did feel somewhat bad about that, but he was just uncomfortable, he couldn't help it. He'd get over it eventually.

He ended up in a boat with, to his mild surprise, three girls, and even three girls he knew. Violet, of course, funny coincidence, Xeni Ingham, whom he'd met a few times, and, unfortunately, Ceri Yaxley. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Perry didn't like Yaxley. The look she was giving Violet, as though suddenly noticing she were too close to something that smelled awful, wasn't much improving his opinion. He didn't mind Xeni, but he'd rather pretend Yaxley wasn't there.

So he ended up not saying anything for the whole trip across the lake. Why did the first years always do this anyway? Seemed kind of silly to him, far more effort than necessary, especially considering he was certain there were enough carriages for everyone. The sight of the castle reclined along the cliff edge, lights gleaming against the night and glittering on the surface of the lake, sure, he guessed it was pretty. But it wasn't that _especially_ pretty, okay. Potter manor was pretty, especially on a new moon night, this wasn't that special. But, fine, he'd put up with it.

He kept his silence all the way up through the dungeons, into the Entrance Hall. Though, he'd admit at least to himself, this part might just be because he was nervous. He was going to be Sorted here in a minute, and yes, he was starting to think the whole Sorting thing was a bit silly. But that didn't make it any less of an important thing. How it turned out would affect how far too many things went over the next seven years, the rest of his life, even. It wasn't completely irrelevant. And he'd be doing it in front of the entire school. He thought he was justified in being somewhat nervous, okay. This was just too...he didn't know, big of a thing, he guessed, all tense and dramatic, it made him uncomfortable.

Probably not Gryffindor, then. But he'd known that already.

After a few boring minutes, they were led into the Great Hall. Perry ignored the other first years marvelling at the sight of the place — what, were they all muggleborns or something? — tried to ignore the eyes of all the other students on him. Not him specifically, still. He ignored the song belted out by the Sorting Hat. Or, er, he _tried_ to, anyway. Who'd ever heard of a tone deaf hat? Well, okay, singing hats weren't that large of a group to begin with, but still, it grated a bit, he'd just like it over now, please.

Finally the cursed thing was done, and McGonagall was calling out names. Perry was trying not to be impatient. After he'd mostly failed through the Sortings of a few people, he frowned at himself. He was starting to think he was really not acting as he should. True, he didn't really care how he was _supposed_ to act, and it did seem a little silly, honestly. Everyone on the edge of panicking, or overwhelmed just by Hogwarts itself, or whatever. He just wanted this to be over already. Which didn't seem...quite right to him. He was getting into the spirit of the moment far less than he'd anticipated he would. Was there something wrong with him? Was he tired or something? He guessed he was a bit sleepy and hungry from the overly-long and rather boring train ride...

Why didn't they just have people floo or portkey to Hogwarts or something? Honestly.

He was mildly surprised when the two Fawleys in his year were split between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Mostly, it was the Ravenclaw that was weird. Fawleys were almost always Gryffindors or Hufflepuffs. Odd. Otherwise, the people he knew, even just in passing, generally weren't a surprise. He was barely paying attention, this was so boring. He did look up when he heard "Palmer, Violet!" called, she would probably be right before him, he should pay attention. His muggleborn cousin walked up to the stool, sat down, and McGonagall placed the Hat on—

'SLYTHERIN!'

Perry started at the instant call of the _last_ house he'd expected. Violet looked just as shocked as he did, staring in very clear disbelief at the Hat as McGonagall pulled it away, eyes wide and mouth dropped open.

Belatedly, he noticed the Hall had gone dead silent. Everyone would know Violet was a muggleborn, of course. There might have been doubt ordinarily, but Violet had a brother in Ravenclaw, and Mum, a(n in)famous muggleborn, _was_ their aunt, people knew. Her nearest magical relatives might not be that far away, but she was still muggleborn. Muggleborns _never_ went to Slytherin. He was completely incapable of thinking of any. He'd never looked specifically, true, but still...

The silence had endured for long seconds, Violet sitting unmoving, when Perry jumped as a shivering hiss of Parseltongue worked its way across the air. «Don't stand there looking stupid, girl.» He glanced in his best guess of where the voice had come from, spotted Charissa, risen to standing near the end of the Ravenclaw table. «Go on, sit down. They don't bite.»

«Not much.»

«Only little,» followed by hissing laughter. Perry didn't have to look to know who those were.

Despite himself, despite the present context, he found himself suffocating a very familiar, old guilt. Mum had told him, long ago, to try not to let Charissa know he was a Parselmouth. At the time, she'd just said it was because the fewer people who knew, the less likely it would get out, and he wouldn't have to deal with people being idiots about it. When he'd found out Charissa was one too, he'd wanted to tell her, but Mum had told him he still shouldn't. If they knew each other was one, they'd be tempted to talk to each other with it. The more someone used Parseltongue, the easier it was to use it on accident, revealing the ability to people they possibly didn't want to know — Charissa had done exactly that, in fact. He'd still wanted to, but...well, Mum had told him not to. So he didn't.

He had thought it a bit odd, when he'd learned more about the inheritance of magical gifts, that both he and Charissa had it. That two full-blooded siblings inherited it meant their nearest Parselmouth ancestor would have to be _far_ more recent than he'd heard Charissa speculate. Charissa seemed to think she'd gotten it from their Black side, the talent reappearing in her for the first time in some generations. But, that _he_ got it too made that far more unlikely. But that didn't quite make sense, since—

«Yes. Sorry. Here now.»

Perry stared, eyes steady on Violet as she shakily pushed herself to her feet, started on her walk through the Great Hall, looking somewhat awkward in the continued silence. If he had to guess, Violet had entirely failed to notice she'd just stunned everyone _again_ by speaking in Parseltongue in front of the entire student population.

Well, this Sorting was suddenly far less boring than it'd been a couple minutes ago.

Wait... _Wait_ a second. Violet was a Parselmouth too? But that...

Charissa and Perry both having it was suspicious to begin with, yes. But, if _Violet_ had it too, that would suggest they hadn't inherited it from their father's side at all. It only made sense if they got it from _Mum's_ side.

Was...

Was Mum a Parselmouth? She'd never said anything, but it _would_ make a lot of sense...

He had no idea how to feel about this.

'Potter, Perry!'

Perry jumped, glanced wildly around the room for a moment. Right. Sorting. Trying not to blush at the whispers and giggling he heard faintly running around the Hall, he tromped up for the head table. Ignoring all the people staring at him, he sat down, closed his eyes as soon as seemed reasonable, and waited for McGonagall to set the Hat on his head.

The instant the magic of the Hat started imposing itself on his mind and magic, he decided he didn't like it.

 _Ah, another Potter, I see._ It wasn't a voice, exactly. It wasn't even really words. A subtle impression of meaning and intent, blossoming in the forefront of his mind, foreign in a way he couldn't quite describe, part of him and yet not. _And you are a complicated one. Where to put you, I wonder._

Perry opened his mouth to speak. Or, at least, he _tried_ to open his mouth to speak, but his body didn't seem to be working. Since he couldn't move, he decided to just think at the Hat, as explicitly as he could. Hopefully that would work. _I thought you'd be sending me straight to Hufflepuff, honestly._

 _Would that be such a bad thing? What about the house has you so leery of it?_

Honestly, Perry wasn't entirely sure why Hufflepuff had the reputation it did. It simply _did_ , and it wasn't like he could entirely counter the immediate impression it would give people by himself. _I don't know, really. I never really liked the idea. But it's fine, you can send me there. I wouldn't mind._

 _Yes, I see that. This is a very recent development, isn't it? Since that awkward little speech your sister gave you. How precious._

If his body were at all connected to his mind anymore, he suspected he would be blushing.

 _That is the question, though, isn't it. Your opinion of the house isn't any better. Your evaluation of how people would see you differently if you were to join them hadn't changed at all, nor how you feel about it. You were simply reassured your sister, your mother, wouldn't think any less of you._

 _Is that bad?_

 _No, of course not! In fact, young man, it is one of your most admirable Hufflepuff traits. Your loyalty to your mother and your sister is absolute and inviolable. Is there anything that could turn you from them? And your brother and father, somewhat less so, but them as well. Yes, this sort of dedication is something Hufflepuffs highly prize. Do you not prize it yourself? You think your Hufflepuff-ness something to be ashamed of, it seems. Are you ashamed of your mother and sister, embarrassed of your loyalty to them?_

 _What?_ Even the thought was horrifying, enough Perry wanted to cringe, but he couldn't at the moment. _No! I mean, I don't know, I didn't think of it that way. That is Hufflepuff-ish, I guess, but I never really... I mean, I didn't... I don't know..._

An odd impression of amusement washed across his thoughts — not his own amusement, of course, a foreign impression from the Hat. Which felt very strange, but no point thinking about it too much at the moment. _No need to stammer, child. Yes, there is plenty of Hufflepuff in you, Perry Potter. Loyalty unassailable, unending tolerance and patience and kindness for those who have earned that loyalty. Plenty, but not enough._

For a few seconds, Perry was too surprised to put a coherent thought together. Which probably wasn't smart, since he was starting to get a headache. He should be moving this along. _What? What do you mean, not enough?_

 _You are dedicated to certain people and things with a purity and selflessness rarely seen, yes. But earning this perfect loyalty is exceedingly difficult, and your trust is easily shattered. Just see how far your father and brother have fallen in your eyes the last few years! No, young Perry, you are quick to anger and slow to forgive, and while you do love fiercely, you are quite selective in who you gift that love to. Not to mention I doubt you would consider yourself hard-working, or fair. No, Hufflepuff isn't the house for you at all._

That... But... Okay, he was confused now. Honestly, the thought that he _wouldn't_ be going into Hufflepuff had barely occurred to him at all. _Why did you bother convincing me Hufflepuff isn't terrible, then?_

 _We need to talk about something while I'm coming to a decision, don't we? Might as well address a misconception of yours as long as we're at it. And besides, seeing how your thoughts and feeling and memories shift as we discuss such things is also informative._ He felt an odd sense of motion, not really against his body, but against his mind, as though the enchantment in the Hat were reorienting itself against his thoughts somewhat. _This loyalty of yours is very prominent, however. There is another house that values loyalty, you know, one I think might be quite suitable._

Perry needed a moment to gather himself again. Gryffindor. The Hat was talking about Gryffindor. He definitely hadn't seen _that_ one coming. _You're joking._

 _You are so opposed to the idea?_

 _It just doesn't seem...me._

 _Really now?_ Against the background of the increasing agony pounding through him, there was an odd, shuddering pulse of amusement, as though the Hat were chuckling into his head. _I don't know about that. You sell yourself short, I think. You perhaps aren't as bold or dramatic a personality as many others, true, but you do have a certain nobility of spirit all your own. It may not be so obvious now, young as you are, but I can see the seeds planted, yet to grow._

 _What seeds?_

 _Yes, it is not hard to see at all_ , the Hat thought, as though Perry hadn't asked anything. _You are a very clever young man, yes, sharp of wit and broad of mind, no doubt there. Prideful, yes, and jealously protective of those you love, no doubt there. But when your pride is not violated, protection unnecessary? How patient you are! You watch, and you observe, and you evaluate, and you wonder. On the train ride here, how much do you think you actually spoke? Barely at all, it seems. No, you sat and watched, learned as much as you could of the people around you. Watched how they interacted, guessed at the relationships between them, extrapolated their thoughts and feelings. Then started reading instead, only when you'd learned all you could, and were bored. And you didn't even have to think about it, decide to do it! It was entirely instinctual._

 _I'm not sure what you're getting at._ It didn't really sound like the Hat was talking about Gryffindor at all.

A foreign sense of amusement rang again through his skull. That wasn't making his head hurt any less. _Who said anything about Gryffindor, child? No, there are two houses that emphasise loyalty, though perhaps with a somewhat different connotation about it. Hufflepuff is one, certainly, but Gryffindor is not the other. I'm sure you could guess._

 _What? No, you can't be thinking of—_

The Hat went on, entirely ignoring him. Though, he guessed he did sort of appreciate that. His head was _really_ starting to hurt, blinding lightning, crackling along his neck and burning his sinuses, anything to speed this up was all to the good. _You are not a bold personality, no, not the least bit. You are a quiet boy, preferring to stand to the side, sit and watch. You are quick to anger when those you love are threatened, yes, but are quiet even then. You do not spit and rage right in your enemy's face, no! You step back and seethe, patiently waiting behind an angelic façade, planning the perfect moment to make your displeasure known. No, no, Gryffindor is not for you at all._

Even through the pounding, throbbing, brilliant pain in his skull, if he were able to move at all, he'd probably be squirming in his seat. _You make me sound kind of evil._

 _You can lie to yourself, Perry Potter, but you can't lie to me. I see the fantasies that dwell behind your eyes. I know what you would do to those who malign you or those you love, if it were in your power. And I know you would be good at it, and that you would enjoy it._

 _What the hell are you trying to say?_

 _You don't see, do you. Interesting. It's not very often I get to Sort a future left hand who hasn't even yet realised what he is._

...

Perry had absolutely no idea how to feel about that.

* * *

Entirely ignoring the Sorting as it got started, Bella just stared down at Astoria. Since Astoria was rather taller than her — not surprising, fucking everybody was taller than her — that wasn't really something she did very often. 'The hell are you doing?'

'Mm.' Astoria shifted against her a bit, turning her face further into Bella's shoulder, arm crossing over her stomach. Her weight was pushing Bella a bit off balance, she had to plant a hand on the bench behind Énna and hook her foot around one of the legs of the table just to stop herself from falling over. 'Wake me up when the Sorting is over.'

Er. Okay, then. 'You know, you keep doing stuff like this, and you might start giving me ideas.'

Astoria tipped her head a bit, opened her eyes to more properly smirk up at Bella. 'I know.' And she just settled in again.

Bella rolled her eyes. There was no point doing or saying anything more about it. Astoria could be completely impossible sometimes. And that was what she was doing, Bella knew, being annoying on purpose. At least, mostly just being annoying — she wouldn't be surprised if some of the things Astoria had been doing lately had been consciously provocative, so to speak, somewhere between teasing and flirting, but she was certain Astoria just liked being a pain, as Daphne could attest. She was starting to get rather tired of it.

Which she did realise was hypocritical of her, but she just didn't give a damn.

The look Clíona was giving the two of them was not helping. She just _knew_ the bitch was going to make far more of this than what it was. There wasn't even a this to make a thing of! Astoria was just being annoying. And even if there were a this, making any kind of thing of it would be uncalled for anyway. Whatever she and Astoria may or may not do with each other was entirely none of Clíona's business. She could just go to hell.

Actually, if Clíona did start implying she and Astoria were...dating, fucking, whatever, Bella shouldn't even deny it. She should take a position of entirely not giving a fuck, as though she couldn't entirely understand what Clíona's problem was. Which, really, wouldn't even be lying. The latter part, she meant. If she and Astoria were a thing, she didn't see why Clíona should care. Why did people get all wrapped up in other people's personal lives? She didn't understand, she simply didn't. It could be a fun way to slap back at her for whatever she came up with, depending on how exactly it went, she'd have to do that.

Of course, if she did do that, it wouldn't stay just between them. Chances were the entire castle would know within a day or two — or at least anyone who was inclined to pay attention, anyway. Which meant Charissa would probably hear it. Which...

Eh. Bella was fine with that. She seriously doubted Charissa would care one way or the other.

She continued to ignore the Sorting entirely. Why did they have to do this every fucking year? It was so boring, honestly. Name after name after name, dozens of kids, most of whom she'd never heard of, none she really cared about. She did glance up for a minute when she heard an Ingham called, but lost interest again when the girl was almost immediately Sorted into Slytherin. Yeah, this was boring.

The business with the younger of Charissa's muggleborn cousins getting Sorted into Slytherin was mildly interesting, at least. Muggleborns are never put in Slytherin. Which Bella had always thought was kind of hilarious — she meant, she was for all intents and purposes a muggleborn, but nobody had blinked at her Sorting, just because of what her name was. So silly. She had to smirk at Charissa's little Parseltongue trick. It was intuitive for Parselmouths, the magic was just part of them, they couldn't help it. Bella hadn't known baby Palmer was a Parselmouth, but talking at her had cued Palmer using it back, right in front of all the Slytherins, yeah, it was clever.

Since he came right after Palmer anyway, she kept paying attention for baby Potter. Of course, then he had to take fucking forever. Seriously, what were they talking about under there? She couldn't imagine what these longer Sortings were like. Apparently the Hat talked to people, which had been news to her. When she'd been Sorted there had only been a brief pause, frozen in place by that very uncomfortable bit of magic. No profound conversation by any means. Really, what was there to even talking about? It was obvious where baby Potter was going, she'd really only had to consider it a couple seconds.

But, by the way virtually everyone who gave a damn in the Hall reacted when he was finally Sorted, it was possible she was just being a fucking cheater again. Apparently, it _hadn't_ been obvious the littlest Potter was a Slytherin.

Finally, the Headmaster gave his characteristically demented welcome, and then food appeared. And finally Astoria got off her. Well, okay, _fine_ , having her all snuggled up against Bella hadn't really been that terrible, she could admit that in her own head. It was just sort of hard to eat with a girl all invading her space like that. Especially one who happened to look like Astoria did. Impossible, really. She wasn't quite as distracting as her sister, sure, but...

Okay, fine. It was possible her inability to truly pay attention to the Sorting hadn't just been because it was boring.

* * *

Even minutes after the Sorting had ended, Charissa kept glancing over her shoulder toward the Slytherins behind her.

She'd had absolutely no idea Perry would be in Slytherin. At all. Normally, she would wonder if she just hadn't been paying attention, worry if there mightn't be something actually important she was missing, but nobody else had seen it coming either. Even Perry had thought he would be a Hufflepuff. She hadn't anticipated this.

So didn't really have a plan to deal with this. She would have to do something about their father, at least. Despite his mother and his half-sister and many of his cousins being Slytherins, Dad had an entirely irrational... Charissa wasn't even sure how to put it. Misconception? Bias? Prejudice? Whatever, Dad was stupid about Slytherin. His preference for Gryffindor wasn't even the least bit subtle. With how infuriatingly tactless he'd been writing to her after her Sorting, just for being in Ravenclaw, she could only assume he'd be worse about Perry being in Slytherin.

Which was doubly bad. It wasn't like Dad's thoughtless stupidity had legitimately hurt her — it'd made her angry, enough she'd incinerated his letter right here in the Great Hall over breakfast, but nothing more than anger. This would be worse. Perry was far more sensitive to such things than she was.

Either that, or he was simply much, much better at faking it. He was a Slytherin, after all. But, no, she'd been in his head, she knew him. He would be hurt, she knew. She'd have to do something about Dad before Dad could do something stupid.

She didn't think she had to worry about Perry, she didn't know, being okay, whatever, with his new housemates. He'd be fine. Even if he had trouble with his yearmates, couldn't make friends himself, Charissa had more than enough friends in Slytherin, along with a fair number of cousins. They'd look out for him. She might say something to Daphne, just to make sure. He'd be fine.

Okay then.

This was probably one of the more annoying meals she'd ever taken in the Great Hall. Since she was prefect now, she was sitting at the front edge of the table, next to the new first-years. The fifth-year prefects were generally expected to look after the incoming students, so she was doing that. And it was a pain. She was trying to be nice, and she thought she was mostly succeeding, but the little things had _so many questions_. She assumed a few of them _had_ to be muggleborn, there was no other way they could just not know so many things. The questions kept coming and coming and coming, a constant deluge. One boy in particular, Charissa had to wonder if he was even getting any food in, the way he kept blabbing. Reminding her of Hermione a bit, actually.

Though, she would admit that when she'd introduced herself, and one of them had asked if she was really _the_ Charissa Potter, the emphasis on the article had been strangely gratifying. The constant questions were partly out of a sense of hero worship, she could see that. Which was entirely unanticipated, but...

Fine. She could work with that.

They'd been eating fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, Charissa so distracted answering incessant questions she'd barely managed a few bites, when she was soundly interrupted. She felt them coming an instant before they arrived, not enough warning to really do anything about it. They both jumped her from behind, arms coming over her arms and around her neck, two heavy bodies slamming into her, weight enough she nearly face-planted into her plate one second, then had to scramble to keep herself from falling over backward the next.

With a bit of effort, Charissa managed to hold in the flash of enraged magic boiling under her skin. She somehow doubted murdering her betrothed and his sister in the middle of the Great Hall was a good idea.

'What the fuck are you two doing?' she snarled once she thought she had control of her voice again.

'So mean, Cousin,' Alex said, voice very close to her right ear. Not that it actually mattered which said what, their voices were different enough she automatically noted it anyway. 'We just missed you.'

From right against her left ear, Hesper said, 'You'd almost think she doesn't love us.'

'We forgive her though, don't we, Brother?'

'Yes, Sister, of course we do.'

Despite herself, Charissa suspected she was feeling faintly amused. Which was no good at all. 'You _missed_ me? We only parted, what, less than an hour ago.'

'And what sweet sorrow it was!'

'We'd say something bittersweet and poetic here, but, you know—'

'—even we think that'd be overdoing it.'

Charissa shook her head to herself — which was rather more difficult than it had to be, with one Gaunt close in on each side. Yes, they must have already broken her somehow. She was finding this far too amusing. 'You two are completely absurd.'

'Old news, everybody knows that by now.'

'And there's newer news! When Mother told me—'

'Which I thought was weird. It's not like Mother actually _needed_ to tell her, or anything.'

'True, but it is just polite. Anyway, I approve. I approve a thousand times.'

It belatedly occurred to Charissa that she'd never explicitly spoken of her engagement to Hesper with Alex. Of course, she hadn't thought to, because she hadn't really needed to: Alex _was_ Hesper, there was no real difference between the two. So while it was technically true this was the first time Alex had given her "approval" it was entirely necessary, and she had to wonder why they were choosing to do this, here, now, this way.

'Mother said we could keep you.'

'Good news.'

'Best news.'

'Is this the best news ever, Brother?'

'I think so, Sister.'

'Best fiancée.'

'Favourite cousin.'

From her spot in the seat right next to Charissa, probably a bit crowded by Alex squeezed between them now, Sorcha let out a low cough. 'Erm, I _am_ sitting right here.'

'Sorry, Sorcha. You know we love you.'

'But you've been demoted. I mean, come on.'

'You _have_ met Charissa, right?'

Charissa couldn't see her at the moment, with Alex in the way, but the smirk was audible on her voice anyway. 'Believe me, I know Charissa _quite_ well.'

For a short moment, the twins were silent. 'Are we jealous right now?'

'Yes, I think we are jealous.'

'We'll have to fix that sometime in the near future.'

'Yes. Fix it. Plans shall be made.'

'Your room or mine?'

'Mine's bigger, but it is on the girls' side.'

'So?'

'Bella might spy on us.'

'Only _might?_ And, is that a _bad_ thing?'

'Good point. Bella is a curious little thing, I guess, and might make good use of a...'

The two speaking simultaneously, in matched slow, smooth whispers, '... _practical demonstration_.'

And they both dissolved into giggles.

Charissa couldn't help a long sigh. The motion was somewhat restricted by how crowded with Gaunt she was right now, yes, but she managed it. She just knew these two were going to be seriously annoying. Until she could find a time to shut them up, anyway, but even that would likely be counterproductive. Just giving them what they wanted too readily would only make them seek it out more often. Not that she at all minded the thought of shagging either or both of them, she would just like a _little_ time undisturbed now and then, thanks. 'Do you two mind? I am trying to eat here.' And answer unending questions from a pack of tiny Ravenclaws, not the point.

'Fine, fine, we'll leave you alone. For now, that is.'

'See you later, Cousin.'

Close enough against her ear Charissa felt an occasional brush of her lips, voice hot and suggestive, just barely short of outright moaning, 'Quite a lot of you.' And then they were both, suddenly, gone, walking away giggling their heads off.

She turned to look over her shoulder, glaring at the pair of retreating backs. She had to wonder if they had any idea what they were asking for. What she tended to do to her lovers. Though, come to think of it, the twins did have an uncanny way of knowing things, and were rather close with a few of of them. It wasn't out of the question they knew exactly what they were getting into. And they had to know annoying her probably wasn't wise, they knew her well enough, but they were bloody well doing it anyway. She did have to wonder about that.

But, almost despite herself, she found a smirk pulling at her lips. This was going to be interesting.

One of the new Ravenclaws started her out of her thoughts, asking what that was all about. So Charissa took a moment to explain who they were, that the boy-shaped one was her betrothed (sort of, since she hadn't actually signed the thing it was complicated). A couple of the more curious ones were both internally and externally shocked at the idea that she was engaged already, probably confirming her guess they were muggleborn. A question on what exactly Alex's stake was in the whole situation led to a lengthy explanation on bonded twins, mostly for the muggleborns' benefit. By the time she was done, quite nearly everyone in earshot was giving her very strange looks.

She didn't have to peek in their heads to know they were slightly unnerved by what what she'd said and how she'd said it implied about their future relationship — she'd gathered by now that how much she didn't care about exactly what Hesper and Alex were, and that she fully intended to be shagging both of them irrespective of who was married to who, was something normal people found a bit odd. She didn't entirely understand that herself, but she often didn't understand normal people. Just one thing more on the list.

The question of why exactly they'd come over here to make a scene like that, though, got her to snort out a dark laugh, rolling her eyes. 'At a guess, they told their Slytherin friends about us, and they didn't believe them. So they proved it.'

One of the first-year boys, Charissa hadn't caught his name, squeaked in that hyperactive voice of us, 'How did that prove anything?'

Smirk again clear on her voice, Sorcha said, 'She didn't curse them.'

Charissa just smiled. She almost had anyway, but not the point.

The feast was over with soon enough. Charissa and Goldstein lingered with the first-years for short minutes, waiting for everyone else to file out of the Hall. As they were leaving, she managed only a quick glance at Perry; he still seemed rather dazed, attention clearly turned inward, but otherwise fine. She and Goldstein led the pack of tiny little Ravenclaws behind them up the stairs, pointing out various things on the way, dropping anecdotes and advice about navigating the castle and dealing with particular professors, that sort of thing. It wasn't directly in their way, but Charissa led the pack on a detour past the library anyway, since she figured they'd all want to know where it was in the very near future.

And then they finally got up Ravenclaw Tower. Charissa was a little confused, when they reached the entrance, by just how easy the question was. It was the sun, obviously. After a second of thought, just short of blurting out the answer, she realised the riddle was for the incoming first-years, not her or Goldstein. So she sat back to wait for one of them to get it, but it didn't take long at all — one of the ones she'd marked as a probable muggleborn got it almost right away.

After the first-years had had a moment to stare around the common room, Flitwick bounded in, started in on the usual introduction speech. And that was it, her prefect duties for the day were over with. Charissa immediately made for the stairs, ascended a few levels, and slipped open the by now very familiar door.

And froze with shock when she saw, standing over a trunk by one of the two beds, obviously part way through unpacking... Charissa's eyes flicked to the other bed but, no, she hadn't gone to the wrong room, there was Augí lazily spread all over the covers. But...

'Charissa?' Padma asked, staring at her with an expression that looked faintly concerned. 'Is something wrong?'

She opened her mouth to answer, then thought better of it. She turned on her heel, stepping back into the hall, loosening her rigid control over her mind for only a moment. Thoughts and feelings not her own washed across her, but the mind she was looking for was most identifiable in that it _wasn't_ showing her anything within, hard and dark and cold, yet vibrating with the ceaseless energy of a dozen angry hornets' nests. Charissa moved for the door she was certain that mind was waiting behind, turned the latch and pushed it open.

Sure enough, inside she quickly spotted Hermione, breaking off whatever she'd been saying to Morag in mid-sentence. For a long moment, Hermione just looked at her. Not much off a glare, to be honest. 'Charissa,' she managed eventually, just above a whisper.

It belatedly occurred to her she hadn't even seen Hermione for... Well, a couple weeks, anyway, Charissa couldn't remember exactly what the date had been when Hermione had broken up with her. Anyway, point was, she'd hardly even noticed. How had that happened? She'd been busy, she guessed, she hadn't really thought of it. Perhaps that was why she couldn't think of anything else to do besides just staring at her.

She absently noticed Morag slinking deeper into her side of the room, a silencing barrier springing up after a few seconds.

Finally, Charissa thought of something to say. 'You weren't in our room.'

Hermione's face tilted into a very strange look, a sort of crooked grimace. 'Er, no?'

'I mean...' Charissa let out a harsh breath, trying to dispel the uncomfortable itches crawling up her spine. She had no fucking clue what she was doing here. 'I just meant, that's why I came over here. You weren't in our room.'

'Were you...' That unreadable look was only getting more intense, Charissa still unsure what it was supposed to be. The disbelief growing in her eyes was far easier. '...checking up on me?'

'I guess so?' To be entirely honest, she wasn't sure what she was doing here. It'd just seemed the thing to do.

'I...' Hermione stared at her for a long moment, eyes narrowed in something not unlike suspicion. Then let out a long sigh, rubbing at her forehead with both hands, muttering something under her breath Charissa was too far away to hear. 'This isn't going to be a regular occurrence, is it?'

'I really can't say. It's not like I planned this.' Of course she hadn't, she hadn't anticipated Hermione moving to a different room — though perhaps she should have, in retrospect — so she hadn't had any cause to plan anything. 'I guess if you just...' Charissa hesitated a moment, biting at her lip. This would be so much easier if she had any idea what she was looking for here. 'I don't know. Promise to come to me if you have any problems with anything, anyone, and I'll promise to try not to be too...intrusive, I guess.'

Hermione let out an aggravated groan, head tipping back to glare at the ceiling as her arms came up to cross under her chest. 'This is _ridiculous!_ I shouldn't have to promise you anything! I broke up with you, remember?'

'I remember.' Charissa had to stop herself there, going so far as biting her lip again — she highly doubted Hermione would take her saying _So?_ at all well. She went on once she was sure she wouldn't say anything unfortunate. Well, as sure as she could be, anyway. 'That has nothing to do with this. Yes, we broke up, but that doesn't mean you're not—' She cut herself off again. Telling Hermione Charissa still considered her hers, no matter Hermione's own opinion on the matter, would probably be a very bad idea. 'I mean, that doesn't mean I don't still care. I don't know, I just have to make sure you're okay. That's it. No nefarious intent or anything. Tell me to piss off if you want, but then I'll get other people to look after you for me anyway.'

Hermione's face had slid through a few different expressions over that ramble, only some of which Charissa could even guess at, but at the end there she slipped back into anger. 'I don't _need_ to be _looked after!'_

Charissa shrugged. 'I know.' Which was a total lie. Well, not _really_. She did know Hermione could more or less take care of herself without her, but it was also true Charissa could take care of her far better than Hermione could alone. But that was very near the top of the list she had in her head of things to never say to Hermione. 'It'll make me feel better, that's all.'

'Fine!' Hermione threw her hands in the air and everything, her face the very picture of frustrated surrender. 'Whatever! Fine!'

Charissa tried not to look too amused. She couldn't help it. This seemed like quite a dramatic overreaction, it was too funny. 'Fine?'

'Yes, fine. I'll try to remember.' That was a strange thing to say — Hermione remembered everything. Without another glance at Charissa, Hermione moved to her trunk, dug into it for a second, pulling out a familiar nightdress and throwing it on her bed much harder than necessary. Then she glanced around to turn another annoyed glare on Charissa. 'Well?'

'Well what?'

'Leave?'

Though she knew it might just make Hermione even more annoyed, Charissa still couldn't help a last narrow smirk before stepping back into the hall, pulling the door closed behind her.

Well. That was odd. No fucking clue what she was doing. She really hoped learning how to deal with Hermione as her ex-girlfriend wouldn't take nearly as long as it had Hermione as her girlfriend. Especially considering she still hadn't had it figured out when Hermione had broken up with her.

Not the time to put too much thought into that, though. She should go slip down to Slytherin quick. Hermione wasn't the only person in the castle she needed to be sure was well, after all.

* * *

Perry looked around the room he would be staying in for the next seven years, not entirely sure how to feel.

It was a nice room, certainly. Nicer than his at home in fact. All deep rosen woods and plush carpets and cushions, gleaming silver accents running along here or there. He suspected even the curtains around the bed were silk, which was a bit ridiculous. He'd gotten a room to himself, and even his own little bathroom, which he hadn't been sure would happen. Many people in Slytherin have their own rooms, yes, but some people end up sharing. His problem wasn't with the room he was in at the moment, no, that was fine. Though it was very...green. Green wasn't _bad_ , just saying.

No, he still wasn't sure how to feel about the fact that he was in the Slytherin dorms right now. The whole idea was still strange. It didn't help that he barely knew anyone in his year — most of the kids who'd been put in Slytherin were people he had met, yes, but not really people he knew all that well. Generally from families his father avoided. All his pre-Hogwarts friends were in Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, which made this somewhat awkward. He had no bloody clue who he'd be talking to. Xeni, maybe? He didn't mind Xeni. He barely knew anyone else, though.

Well, okay, there were older students he knew, but he somehow doubted they'd appreciate him following them around all the time. They'd put up with him in their compartment, but he knew that'd mostly just been because he was Charissa's brother. He didn't expect them to be nearly so accommodating when Charissa wasn't around.

He'd just have to make new friends, he guessed. He could do that. Starting with Xeni, since they did sort of get along already, and she probably knew people, so that could be a stepping-off point. And there was Violet, he guessed. Sure, he could do that.

He meant, there _had_ to be a few in his year who weren't completely terrible. Here's hoping.

He'd barely gotten changed for bed when there was a knock on his door. For a moment he was confused — who the hell would be coming to see him here, the first night at school? He barely even knew any Slytherins yet, certainly none he would expect to come to his room this late. But eventually he noticed a very slight tingle working up the back of his neck, that indescribable sense of a mind tugging slightly at his own. Ah, it was Charissa. Well, why did she bother knocking, then? He'd think she should just know when she was welcome and when she wasn't.

The door tipped open, only enough for Charissa to slip inside and close it behind her. He was slightly surprised to notice she wasn't wearing school robes, and not even the muggle-style jeans and tee shirt she'd transfigured them out of on the train, but an entirely different dress, in the white and red of their House. Or perhaps she'd just transfigured this too, he wouldn't be able to tell. 'I do know, of course,' Charissa was saying, a slight smile on her lips. 'It's just polite to ask.'

Perry frowned. 'It's only me, though.'

'True,' Charissa said with a shrug. 'But I should do it anyway. If I start cutting corners about that kind of thing too much, it'd be too easy to mess it up when it actually matters, just out of habit.' Well, he guessed that made sense. After a glance around the room, Charissa moved to the couch a bit to the side of the door, sinking to a seat; not really sure what else to do with himself, Perry sat on the edge of his bed, straight across from her. 'I just thought I'd check up on you quick. Make sure you're okay.'

He had guessed as much. He couldn't imagine any other reason Charissa would be here. 'Fine, I guess. Nothing's really happened. I've barely even talked to anyone yet.' Charissa raised an eyebrow, which he was compelled to match with a sheepish shrug. 'We all just went straight to our rooms after Vector's little welcome thing, and at dinner everyone was talking about Violet.'

Charissa's face tensed a bit. She didn't look concerned, exactly, but then she hardly actually looked anything. 'Yes, Violet. That might be a problem.'

'I think you helped a bit already, with the Parseltongue thing.' Once again, he was sorely tempted to tell her he was a Parselmouth too, but Mum _had_ told him—

'She did _what?'_

Perry jumped at the outburst from Charissa, her voice somewhat louder and somewhat harder than it'd been a second ago. Her eyes were sharp and intense on him, and he couldn't help squirming a little. Partially out of guilt, admittedly. He hadn't meant to break his promise but, well, legilimens, whoops. His voice low and cautious, «Mother says no telling. Why, not known with me, only guess. Make me promise. Sorry.»

For a short moment, Charissa just stared at him, still save for the little twitches in his head he assumed was her looking around in there. Then she let out a hard sigh, rubbing at her forehead. «Yes. Good. I'm not annoyed with you. But I will have to ask Mother if she's a Speaker next time I see her.» Charissa sighed again, shaking her head to herself. 'But that's not really important right now, forget about it.'

Perry still felt a bit guilty. He hadn't meant to spark a fight between them. He hoped it wouldn't be too bad, though, it shouldn't be. By the way Charissa was acting, she didn't really care about the whole thing all that much anyway. And she wasn't annoyed with him, at least, which he'd admit he was a little selfishly relieved about. He'd rather Charissa not be annoyed with him. 'I am mostly fine, though. A little worried about barely knowing anyone. And, well, how Dad will react when he finds out.'

A very slight scowl touched Charissa's lips. 'Yes, he'll probably make an arse of himself. I'll send him a _patrōnus_ in the morning telling him to behave.' Despite himself, he found the idea of his sister ordering their father to _behave_ far too amusing, he couldn't suppress a grin. Charissa returned it with a baffled, reluctant smile, obviously catching the thought. 'I'm still surprised you're in Slytherin, though. I figured Hufflepuff. _Maybe_ Ravenclaw, but...'

And now Perry was a bit uncomfortable, the grin immediately vanishing. 'Ah, I thought so too. And the Hat did say I had some Hufflepuff traits, but not enough.'

Charissa hummed a little. 'The Hat did nearly put me in Slytherin, you know. That's why I was a Hatstall — it couldn't decide between Slytherin and Ravenclaw.'

He wondered if that was supposed to be a surprise.

Shaking her head a bit, Charissa let out a sharp snort of laughter. 'No, I guess not, really. It bothered me for a while, wondering if I were too Slytherin-ish. I had expected to be put in Gryffindor, you see. Which is laughable in retrospect, I'll admit, but I was younger and stupider.'

Perry had a hard time imagining Charissa stupid. But he had been what, six at the time or something, so he guessed he probably wasn't the most informed on the subject.

Charissa was smiling a little, the slightly crooked expression only a shade off a proper smirk, probably having picked up what he was thinking again. 'But anyway, I kept trying to avoid doing Slytherin-ish things, trying to suppress that part of me as much as possible. Because I'd listened to Dad and Sirius too much, had absorbed the irrational mindset that those impulses are evil, and I was somehow wrong for even having them. Which is very stupid. I know plenty of Slytherins I like just fine, and they're not terrible people. To be honest, most of them are probably less objectionable than I am, morally speaking.' Her lips twitching wider, she said, 'You might have noticed this by now, I'm not exactly very nice.'

He almost had to laugh at that. No, he knew Charissa wasn't all that nice. Sort of scary sometimes, honestly. But she was nice enough to him, and she always had reasons for the scary things she did, so he really didn't care. 'You're saying that I shouldn't try to fight my own Slytherin-ness. To just accept it and move on.'

Charissa nodded. 'You'll be happier that way, that's for sure. No matter how you turn out, I'll still be here, Mum'll still be here. Linden too, probably, he likes you more than he does me. Dad might be a bit of a prick about it, but let me deal with that if he does. Even if I can't get him to stop being stupid, I'll be Lady Potter in time anyway, so any issues will be temporary. Don't worry about any of it. Just do as you like.'

For long seconds, Perry could only stare at Charissa. It had been extremely subtle, but... Had... Had Charissa just implied if Dad were to become too cruel to Perry she would just kill him and be done with it?

Still in his head as she was, one of Charissa's eyebrows just ticked up slightly. Right, that _had_ been intentional, then. He had no idea how to feel about that.

Though it did get him randomly remembering what the Hat had said about Perry being a future (potential?) left hand.

It wasn't a thing that technically existed anymore. Not that it had even existed at the time, at least not officially, just a thing people said. Back before the Statute, when Noble Houses in general had been far more powerful than they were now, entrusted with lands and industries and entire communities of people in the combined muggle–magical world, many of them were said to have a right and left hand. Or multiple of each, really, it varied. Many had grown as famous as the Lord they served, some still remembered in songs and literature long after their Lords had been forgotten entirely. When he thought of the concept, he mostly thought of the most well-known right and left hands of Lord Henry Black, one of the very last pre-Statue High Enchanters, widely considered the most successful and most popular person to ever hold the office.

The most famous of his right hands was his eldest daughter Bellatrix — the frequent use of the name by the Blacks in the centuries since was originally inspired by this one, in fact. Lord Henry was a very wealthy, very powerful man, conducting business in practically every market in existence, with ties to most of the magical and muggle leadership in Britain as well as a whole host of foreign countries. The point was, he simply couldn't be everywhere he had to be at once. So, he'd selected Bellatrix to speak and act in his stead when he couldn't. Bellatrix handled much of his above-board affairs. Managing businesses and contacts, arranging contracts and alliances, even voting in his place in the Wizengamot when he had other pressing business. A few times, she'd even stood for him when he'd been challenged to duels by one sore loser or another — she hadn't been misnamed, after all. Bellatrix had been greatly respected in her time, not only for her skill with a wand, which had been appropriately intimidating, but also for her intelligence, and articulateness, and just general respectability, serving her Lord and furthering the cause of her House with unimpeachable social grace.

 _Her_ daughter, on the other hand, was an entirely different story. Nymphadora, Perry's cousin Dora's namesake, had at a very early age taken over as Lord Henry's favourite left hand. Much like the Dora he knew, this Nymphadora had also been a metamorph — he assumed that was why Aunt Andi had chosen the name in the first place — and an absolutely deadly dark witch. As her Lord's left hand, Nymphadora's job was to act in his stead in places he _shouldn't_ go, with people he _shouldn't_ meet. Peasants too far below his station for it to be entirely appropriate, primitive peoples or magical races that were too politically toxic for him to be seen with, various criminals he couldn't openly associate with for the obvious reasons. And she also took care of the dirty work he couldn't do personally. Threats, abductions, kidnappings, blackmail. During his meteoric rise, eventually all the way to High Enchanter, literally the single most important person in British magical society, Lord Henry's most ardent enemies had this peculiar way of just... _disappearing_. Nymphadora had been assassinating them, of course, but nobody could prove that. Nobody knew for sure and, since the various philanthropic activities of House Black had made Henry extremely popular with muggles and mages of all walks of life, nobody looked into it too closely.

Those who did, admittedly, had the same disappearing problem.

He'd heard rumours Nymphadora was still around, somewhere. She had been a metamorph, after all, and they didn't technically have a maximum lifespan as normal people did, so it was theoretically possible. It was known for certain she'd survived the war with the Dark Lady Cromwell, and she had once addressed the Wizengamot late in the Nineteenth Century (though even at the time many had raised doubts she was who she'd said she was). Everything more recent than that were only unconfirmed rumours and stories. But it was still interesting to think about, that she could still be out there. Waiting in the shadows, watching over her numerous descendants, occasionally making the worst of their enemies _disappear_.

She wasn't the only famous (or infamous) left hand, just the one he knew best. And the thought of doing what she was known to have done...

'Would you really do it?'

He blinked, looked up at Charissa. She was giving him a steady look he couldn't quite read. Her face was mostly blank, eyes only slightly narrowed, unmoving on his, gaze so heavy he could nearly feel it weighing him down. 'Do what?'

Charissa tilted her head slightly, leaning forward in her seat. 'Serve as my left hand, if I asked it of you.'

'I...' Perry _tried_ not to squirm in place, but he couldn't really help it, he was suddenly feeling distractingly awkward. 'Ah, well. I don't think you really _need_ one.'

Charissa shrugged. 'You never know. But whether you ever _will_ aside, you _would?'_

He... The sort of things left hands did in the stories, all the sneaking and the spying and the hurting and the killing... 'I really don't think I'd be very good at it.'

That one, Charissa snorted at, for some reason. 'You might be surprised. And that wasn't an answer either.'

He guessed it wasn't. But, when it came down to it, it wasn't a hard question to answer. 'I think I would. If you asked me to, I think I would, yeah.' Charissa didn't say anything, just staring at him, seeming almost... No, "confused" wasn't quite the right word. Fascinated? Like she hadn't seen this coming, and had never heard such a thing in her life, and wasn't sure how to respond to something so...big, he guessed. 'Is that bad?'

'Not bad.' Charissa's face tensed a little in the slightest of frowns, only a moment before she shrugged. 'I don't understand it. It's unfathomable to me. To love someone enough to willingly serve them in such a way...' She shook her head. 'Can't imagine myself doing that.'

Not entirely surprising, he'd admit. 'Not even for Mum?'

Charissa hesitated a couple seconds. 'Not exactly, no. If she wanted me to do something specific, and she had a good enough reason for it, then I would do it. But I doubt I'd be able to obey even her unthinkingly. I simply don't think I'm capable of committing myself to the sort of thing. Doesn't come naturally to me.'

Despite himself, Perry thought he felt a smile coming to his face. 'I suppose that's why you're the Lady and I'm the hand.'

Charissa just smiled. 'Getting ahead of yourself there, Perry. Neither of us are either of those things yet.' While he tried to think of some way to respond to that, Charissa got to her feet, slowly padded across the strip of floor to stand right in front of him. Sitting on the bed, his head was lower than hers, but she was short enough it wasn't by very much. She stared at him, for just a second, head slightly cocked. Then she raised a hand, bringing slightly cool fingertips to his cheek.

And then... He wasn't entirely sure what happened. One moment everything was normal, and the next... It was her magic, it had to be her magic. He knew Mum usually held it in, and Charissa must do something similar. He _could_ usually feel more around Charissa than he could Mum anyway — a slight air of reckless energy, warm cheerfulness — but she must be holding it back as much as she could. Because _this_ was...

It was absolutely _amazing_. His eyes twitched and burned, as though looking too close at something too bright, despite there not being anything that could possibly cause it, a hot, pleasant tingle ran over his skin head to toe, making him shiver. And it was in his chest, his very blood, an eager thrill of sharp power, filling his nose with grass and setting him to nearly bounce in place with irrepressible, hyperactive energy sprung from nowhere. And it was in his ears, a haunting, jangling chorus of alien voices, giggling in harmony, his head filled with warmth and agony and pleasure and possibility and adoration, and he knew Charissa was sifting through his mind right now, examining him at an intimate depth she'd never done before, perhaps never done on _anyone_ before, but he entirely didn't care, she could stay in there as long as she wanted, she could do whatever she wanted, he _wanted_ her to—

Then, abruptly, it was over, the foreign magic leaving him so quickly he was left gasping. Charissa had one hand on his shoulder, as though holding him from flopping boneless off the bed, the fingers of the other threaded through his hair. His forehead came against the cloth of her dress over her chest, he honestly didn't know if he'd leaned forward himself or Charissa had put him there. He was too dizzy, too disoriented, too distracted by his own desperate breathing to really pay enough attention.

'Sorry about that, Perry,' she whispered, her breath flicking through the hairs at the top of his head. 'I didn't realise that would be quite so overwhelming.'

''s okay.' At least, he was pretty sure it was okay. That had been a bit much. And now that it was gone he was feeling a bit exhausted and...fragile? Didn't feel like the right word. He wasn't used to having that much magic run through him, was all, feeling that many impossibly intense things at once. He didn't feel quite right, all raw and shaky and thin. He could really do with going to sleep right about now.

'You probably should. It is late, and it has been a long day.'

'Hmm.' He guessed so. Though he was rather curious what she' been looking for in his head anyway.

'Nothing too important. Just checking how serious you were about this, and whether you have the mental fortitude to actually do it. The latter isn't easy, by the way, involves some of the deepest reading Severus taught me to do.'

'Did I pass?'

His face was still against her chest — his eyes were closed anyway — but he could tell from her voice Charissa would be smiling. Probably a crooked smile, but a smile all the same. 'Yes, Perry, you "passed". You're stronger than you think you are. You could do nearly anything you set your mind to, I believe.'

'Hmm.' Honestly, he thought he'd just rather stay with Charissa. He could do the whole...left hand-y thing. He meant, if he wouldn't be too terrible at it. That was fine. If it was what Charissa wanted, if he could actually do it, he would.

Charissa chuckled a little, felt more than heard. 'Silly boy.' The words were said with a trace of mockery, but the way her fingers gently slid through his hair was almost uncharacteristically affectionate, he didn't mind. 'Perhaps I should start teaching you quite a bit more than just wandless magic. If you really intend to do this, I mean.'

He hadn't gotten that great with wandless magic anyway. It was _hard_. He'd managed a few basic charms by now, but not a lot.

' _A few basic charms_ is better than I was at your age.'

Perry couldn't even attempt to repress his immediate skepticism at the thought, it was just reflex.

And Charissa was laughing at him again. 'Yes, you are a very silly boy, aren't you. Come on,' she said, hand disentangling itself from his hair, moving down to his other shoulder. 'Into bed with you, before you simply pass out.'

Without really meaning to, Perry's hands had come up, fisting themselves into Charissa's dress. 'Can you...' He trailed off before he could even get the thought off, doubting himself. He couldn't imagine Charissa would want to, he knew she would be annoyed by the whole idea. And besides, it was rather embarrassing. He was supposed to be eleven here, he was being ridiculous, he didn't know why he'd even asked.

'Stay, you mean?' Charissa let out a long sigh. He levered his eyes open, peeked up to find her staring at the ceiling. 'I suppose I didn't help, shooting all that magic through you and digging into your head.'

Oh. He guessed that could have something to do with how weird and unsettled he was feeling right now. He hadn't really thought about it. He just...didn't want her to go. Which was silly. He really shouldn't...

'It's fine, Perry. I don't mind. Not like I have someone waiting for me in my dorm anyway.' Her voice sounded slightly bitter saying that, but Perry was too exhausted to ask after it. 'Just give me a minute.'

Before he could barely blink, Charissa had extricated herself somehow, and had disappeared into his bathroom, door clicking shut behind her. All right then. He tipped over, slid up properly on the pillows, wiggled himself under the sheets. After only a few seconds he decided it would be too hot under here, peeled the quilt off the top and sat up to throw it back. There, that'd probably be fine. It was a bit chilly in the dungeons, but since Charissa would be here it'd be warmer than it would be normally.

The door opened again, and Charissa was walking into the room. She looked around for a couple seconds before spotting the hook just to the side of the door — for cloaks, he assumed — started walking toward it. Before even getting there, Charissa had already pulled her dress over her head. When she started tugging at the slip she wore under it, Perry turned onto his side, facing away. He was well aware Charissa didn't care, and knowing her probably didn't even understand the concept of modesty, but it seemed like the sort of thing he should do anyway, so he did.

He was pretty sure he heard her snickering at him again. Which he didn't think he entirely deserved, but okay.

After a few seconds, the lights went out, and a moment after that the sheets lifted as Charissa got into bed behind him. His immediate impulse was to slide in against her, but he checked himself. For one thing, he really had no idea why he was being so weird and clingy all of a sudden. He knew Charissa wouldn't appreciate it, a bit of an understatement, but it wasn't really normal behaviour for him either. How much he'd like Charissa to be holding him right now was really quite strange. He was just in an off mood, he guessed. He wouldn't say anything, though, he knew Charissa hated that sort of thing, so he'd just—

'Go on, then.'

Perry nearly jumped at her voice, feeling oddly guilty, he wasn't even sure why. It took him a second to figure out what she was saying. 'Erm, are you sure? I don't need to—'

'Oh, shut up.' Perry had only a very brief warning, a faint tingling something sliding against his skin, before he was yanked backward, rolling half-over as he went, in an instant coming to rest against a warm, soft shape he knew had to be Charissa. 'You are such a pain sometimes.'

Squirming at the almost nauseating shifting heat in his stomach, Perry muttered, 'Sorry.'

'It's fine.' Her voice turning a bit teasing, 'I'm long accustomed to dealing with you being annoying by now.'

Yeah, that wasn't making Perry any _less_ embarrassed. He ignored it though, settling in against Charissa, shifting his head onto her shoulder, arm slipping high over her waist. At least, that's what he _meant_ to do. Apparently, in the darkness he misjudged where exactly his arm was in relation to her, because his fingers suddenly hit resistance where they shouldn't have, and he realised what was going on right about when he noticed against his palm what he was pretty sure was— 'Sorry! Sorry!' His hand jumped away as though scalded, his heart jumping hard into his throat, and he started pulling back from Charissa.

But he didn't get very far, Charissa's hand on his back stopping him from sliding away. 'Relax, Perry, I'm not angry.' If anything, he noticed with some confusion, she seemed to think his sudden panic was just funny. While he tried to get his breathing back under control — sort of odd, how fast it'd completely run away from him — Charissa shifted a bit, her fingers finding his wrist, dragging his arm over her waist. 'There. Nothing to be so silly about. Settle down.'

He did realise he was being somewhat silly. He couldn't help it though. He didn't want to make Charissa angry, and he imagined that just there was the sort of thing that, even when done completely on accident, could easily make girls angry. So, even though she'd waved the whole thing off, he still felt the need to mutter, 'Sorry,' again.

'Whatever. You start getting to sleep before I decide to just hit you with a sleeping charm.'

That probably wasn't a bad idea in any case. His face was still so hot with embarrassment, heart still thudding distractingly in his ears, he wasn't sure he'd be able to get to sleep anytime soon as it was.

A few moments passed in silence, Perry trying the whole time to force himself to stop being ridiculous, with some moderate success. It helped that he was sleepy, and Charissa was all warm and comfortable. He thought he even noticed that same easing of previously unnoticed tension he'd gotten earlier, meeting Mum on the train. But then he was jerked around a little when Charissa shook with sudden laughter, by the hissing sound of it choked behind her teeth but still strong enough to escape. It went on for long seconds, Perry bobbing a bit with each half-suffocated snicker.

He had absolutely no idea what she was laughing about, come out of nowhere. He was rather curious, even though he suspected she might be making fun of him again. Oh well. 'What?'

'Nothing,' she gasped, voice thin and breathless from laughter. 'I was just randomly thinking, you know, that thing boys do for some reason, talking about sexual stuff they've done and—' Charissa broke off a moment, giggles partially muffled, probably by a hand over her mouth. '—and then you mention groping your sister in bed and—' And she dissolved into laughter some more.

Turning rather hot and squirming again, Perry pressed his face into Charissa's shoulder, letting out a long groan. ' _Charissa,'_ her name drawn out sounding rather whiny, 'stop that.'

It took her a few seconds to gather her breath enough to speak. 'Hey, you're the one who wanted to know what was so funny. Don't ask next time.'

Grumbled under his breath, Perry said, 'I didn't _mean_ to, just an accident, not my fault you just _have_ to be half-naked...'

'I'm completely naked, actually.'

Perry froze. Er...

'Oh, calm down, silly boy.' The hand behind his back moving a bit, her voice turning low and slow and meticulously serious, Charissa said, 'You're too young for me.' And then Charissa's fingers were in his hair, roughly messing it about.

He turned his face fully into Charissa's shoulder, fruitlessly hoping that would be enough to hide his mortification. Which he knew was ridiculous, Charissa was a bloody legilimens, but it still seemed the thing to do. His voice sounding far too much like whining, ' _Charissa!_ You're _evil.'_

When she again burst into laughter, just how much it sounded like wicked cackling did less than nothing to prove him wrong.

* * *

 _In case anyone is curious, Xeni is short for Polixeni (Greek:_ Πολυξένη _), and Ceri is a nickname for Cerðwyn._

[she hadn't been misnamed, after all] — _In Latin, the name literally means warrior woman. (bellum = "war" -› bellō "I wage war; fight" {plus} -trīx (feminine agentive suffix) -› bellātrīx "woman who wages war")_

* * *

 _Well, that was interesting. No comment on...a lot of things that just happened, actually._

 _Yes, this chapter is a bit late, sorry about that. Well, technically, it is only a week after the last TRW chapter, but that one was significantly delayed. For those who don't also read TRW, much of my lateness is due to driving over seven hundred miles, followed by various distractions. This entire chapter was written sitting on LeighaGreene's couch. So there's that._

 _I know I've said this before, but I'll try to get back on schedule._

 _~Wings_


	37. Fifth Year — Not Out of Love

_September 24th, 1995_

* * *

Charissa didn't bother saying the password to open the passage. She knew it, of course, but it made her feel somewhat silly. Instead she simply stabbed at the enchantment with a pulse of magic, threaded through with a command to _open_ , authoritarian and unwavering. The mirror, extending from the floor to above her head and wide enough for four people shoulder-to-shoulder, turned transparent without a sound, revealing the hidden room within. Charissa stepped through the barrier, paused only a couple steps into the room. 'Weasleys.'

Toward the back-right corner of the large, high-ceilinged room, buried between tables laden with bottles and boxes and simmering cauldrons, there were two simultaneous yelps of surprise. One of the identical red-haired and freckle-faced figures dropped whatever he'd been holding into the cauldron he'd been leaning over, setting the contents to violently boiling. Charissa took one glance at the thick fumes billowing into the air, and flicked out her wand to cast a bubblehead charm over herself, followed by a general repulsion charm a second later, just to be safe.

She was mildly impressed, when the fumes finally cleared enough, to notice the twins had managed to protect themselves, despite the far lesser time they'd had to react. Though, it was possible they had a light repulsion charm enchanted into something they were carrying. That was something experimental potioneers did rather a lot, and the deviously clever seventh-years were definitely capable enough to do it.

'Dammit, Potter!' one of them yelled, glaring at her across the tables and boxes packed into the room. 'What are you doing—'

'—just barging in here? We could have been killed!'

She sniffed. 'I highly doubt that.' Despite what many might say, the twins weren't stupid enough to risk a deadly reaction happening so easily. Besides, she was rather sure most of their products hadn't anything truly dangerous in them anyway. Some of the Snackboxes, maybe, but they would be appropriately cautious in preparation. Which they knew full well — she could see in their mind that comment had only been to buy time as they scrambled to reason out just how she'd found them.

They couldn't come up with an explanation on their own, so they just asked. 'Really, though, how'd you find us?'

'Nobody's ever managed to find our lab yet.'

'Nobody knows the secret passages like we do, do they, Forge?'

'Not even close, Gred. Plus, the aversion ward we put up.'

'There is that,' complete with a pair of suspicious glares.

Charissa met their obviously displeased looks with an easy smirk. 'The answer to both those questions is the same: I'm a legilimens. I felt the aversion ward, of course, but I just ignored it — mind-influencing magics tend not to work too well on people like me. I knew you were here because I can feel your minds from three floors away if I try. The ward was a bit of a giveaway, but I already knew you were here before I was close enough for it to affect me.

'And really,' Charissa said, voice turning sweet and smirk tilting wider, 'shouldn't you have seen me coming? What, don't have the Map open?'

The twins went very still, staring at her flat and steady, faces absent any expression. Their mind, though, was racing. 'Map?' one said, voice slow and _almost_ innocent.

'Don't know what you're talking about, I'm afraid.'

Shaking her head with mock disappointment, she said, 'Boys, boys, boys. Really now, if you're going to lie to a legilimens, you'll have to try harder than that.'

'Even if we knew what you're talking about—'

'—and we're not saying we do—'

'—what makes you think we have this Map of yours?'

'Or that there's a Map at all, really.'

Charissa shrugged. 'Moony's convinced you have the thing, has been since your third year.'

Two sets of identical eyes widened with obvious shock, two identical mouths gaping open. ' _Moony?'_ they said in unison. 'You mean, _the_ Moony? You know him?'

'I know all of them. Show me the map and I'll give you names. Padfoot in particular you might want to meet. I imagine getting this shop of yours set up will be quite the financial undertaking. Impress him and he may be willing to help you along a little.'

The twins couldn't produce the Map for her quick enough. Soon they had a sizeable square of old parchment on the table, yellowed and fraying at the edges. One of them pulled his wand, likely to activate the thing for her.

Charissa grabbed the man's wrist before he could. She pulled her own wand, set the tip to the parchment. Voice even and clear, doing her best to avoid how extremely silly this was, she said, 'A tickler of dragons seeks passage.' She lifted her wand, ignoring the twins muttering something to themselves, watched the parchment as glossy black ink rose from its depths.

 _Mr Prongs aknoulecheþ a comrade-at-armes, but warneþ þe ſecrettes of þe Marauders are not ſo eaſilie partede ƿiþ._

 _Mr Moony ƿiſheþ to aſk þe petitioner ƿhat he intendeþ to do ſcholde he be grantede acceſs._

Charissa grimaced at the terrible fake Middle English. It was decipherable, of course, but it was just annoying. Seemed like something Dad and his friends would have done as teenagers, self-important brats. Putting her wand to the parchment again, Charissa said, 'As to the first question, I wish to create a copy for my own use. As to the second, as the firstborn child of Mister Prongs I feel I have some right to his work, especially something so useful.' She completely ignored the twins' jabbering at that.

 _Mr Padfoot moveþ to deny þe requeſt. Obviouſlie, þe petitioner is a liar._

 _Mr Ƿormtail ƿiſheþ to remind Mr Padfoot contraception is often miſappliede by þe eager. It is not impoſſible Mr Prongs coude haþ faþered a child._

 _Mr Moony chideþ Mr Prongs for his careleſſneſs, but is not truly ſurpriſede._

While the twins snickered, Charissa just rolled her eyes. Bloody thing. 'It has been years since this map was created, you know. Mister Prongs and my mother _were_ married.'

 _Mr Moony begeþ þe petitioner conveȝe his greateſt ſympaþies to his moþer for her miſfortune._

Charissa actually snorted at that one.

 _Mr Prongs ƿolde like to tell Mr Moony to keepeþ his unƿantede opinions to himselve._

 _Mr Padfoot ƿonderþ ƿho ƿæs so unlucky to marrie þe antlerede prat._

 _Mr Moony suȝȝeſteþ Ms Evans._

 _Mr Ƿormtail diſagreeȝeþ, ſince Mr Prongs must hæn livede long enouȝe to beget þe petitioner._

'This is very amusing, boys, but I do have things to do. Are you going to release the ward keys for me or not?'

 _Mr Prongs sugȝeſteþ þe petitioner be grantede his requeſts. Eny child of his muſt have plans for hit amuſende._

 _Mr Moony conſenteþ, as it be improbable þe petitioner coude damage þis article ƿiþ acceſs to þe keys alone._

 _Mr Padfoot ƿolde prefer þe child learne to do ƿhat dirtie ƿork hisselve, but ƿill alloue it þis ones._

 _Mr Ƿormtail conſenteþ, an preȝe_ _þ_ _Fortune favour þe petitioner._

A moment after the fake Peter's last message was displayed, all the text vanished, replaced with blue light, a small circle glowing softly in the centre of the parchment. Finally — that had been _seriously_ fucking annoying. Charissa lifted her left hand a bit, a flick of her wrist flipping back her sleeve, revealing s silvery bracelet slung close about her skin. A tap of her wand and a minute burst of magic had the enchantment primed. A brief incantation and a second tap of her wand and the thing was ready to accept the ward keys. She brought her wand back to the Map, the first word of the incantation forming on her lips.

'Wait!' one of the twins yelled, almost but not quite reaching to grab her arm. 'What are you doing?'

'We mean, is the Map still going to work when—'

' _Yes,'_ Charissa hissed through grit teeth, shooting the boys a cool glare. 'Calm down, will you? I'm only copying the ward keys.' That should have been bloody obvious, the fake Moony had even said what she was doing wouldn't ruin the thing.

'Ward keys? You mean...'

'The Map pulls everything from the castle wards?' The Weasleys looked stunned, wide-eyed and still.

'Yes, obviously. How else did you think it keeps up with the little shifts this place goes through all the time? Or how it knows where everyone is?' The twins seemingly didn't have a response to that, simply staring into the distance, somewhere between shocked and impressed to the point of overwhelmed. Charissa shook her head, going back to her work.

Not that she could entirely blame them, to be honest. Her mother had designed this little take on the Marauder's Map, but she'd said she needed to get access to the wards from Remus. Remus, though, hadn't been willing to help her get them, or even tell her _how_ they'd gotten them themselves. He'd just pointed her in the direction of the original Map instead. Cracking into the wards wasn't too complicated, theoretically, but it would involve physically attaching a fade anchor of their own make to the wardstones, probably a few attempts to get the enchantment exactly right. Charissa didn't even know where the wardstones were. Far as she knew, save for a few select members of the staff, nobody did.

It was a simple matter to duplicate the ward keys — a single charm to copy them into the bracelet, a second to get the enchantment to integrate the seemingly random threads of magical energy, and it was done. Charissa slipped her wand away, activated the enchantment with a soft pulse of wandlessly-drawn energy.

If she hadn't practised with Severus on something far simpler, this would have been completely impossible. Mum had decried putting the Map on literal paper as far too impractical — not only would one have to carry a big piece of parchment around, but scanning for a specific person was rather tedious, and it was far too obvious when it was being used. Instead, she'd adapted an enchantment she and Severus had invented back in their school days for the purpose, Charissa practising with one of their original works to get herself used to it while waiting on the ward keys.

Essentially, instead of drawing the Map on paper, it was drawn straight into her mind. It would come out complete nonsense to someone who wasn't passable with mind magic, perhaps even overwhelming and painful, but Charissa straightened it out without too much trouble. The three-dimensional image was very easy to sort through, flicking by room to room at the speed of thought. Finding a specific person was ridiculously easy. She simply thought the name _Hermione Granger_ to herself, and she was suddenly looking at a pale blob of colour in what was clearly the library, labelled with her name and a Ravenclaw emblem, another blob labelled _Luna Lovegood_ nearby — interestingly, instead of a Ravenclaw emblem, Luna had what Charissa recognised as rather outdated coat-of-arms for House Ollivander. Curious. She thought of Linden, and he showed up immediately, his blob looking oddly washed out — since he appeared to be sneaking into the occupied Gryffindor changing room down at the quidditch pitch, a few named blobs in the showers (of which she really only knew Bell), he probably had the Cloak on, diminishing his presence in the wards somewhat. Much like Luna, he was labeled with a personal family crest instead of his Hogwarts house, but it was clearly the Longbottom one. She thought of Perry, and immediately found him in a ground floor inter-house common room, sitting with a group of mostly unfamiliar Slytherins and Ravenclaws, only some of whom had emblems matching their names. Hmm.

Just a guess, she was assuming someone had added some record of what House someone belonged to at some point into the wards, but simply hadn't updated it in centuries. That would explain Luna's, as well as her brother's and, she confirmed quick, her own. Lovegood was a comparatively new House, but Luna's grandmother had been born an Ollivander, one of the oldest established magical families in the Celtic world. Similarly, her House was significantly older, but by no means ancient, originally founded by a Longbottom. It wasn't unreasonable an outdated scheme might simply consider them Longbottoms.

Just out of random curiosity, she thought of Dumbledore and—

Nothing happened. She frowned, then shrugged it off. He was probably out of the castle again. She flicked up to his office quick, just out of curiosity, to confirm he wasn't there. However, there _was_ another presence there, bright and vibrant in the wards, labelled with an emblem she didn't recognise — a red sun rising over a purple field, three orange and white feathers spread beneath the horizon — and the name... Well, it was Classical Brīþwn, obviously, and she was _pretty_ sure it translated to Glitters-With-Morning-Dew.

She was mildly confused for a moment, before realising who that obviously had to be: Fawkes. It had never really occurred to her to wonder about before, but it _was_ common knowledge phoenixes were self-aware beings, no less intelligent than humans. Fawkes must be his own person, not just Dumbledore's familiar. In fact, he most likely wasn't Dumbledore's familiar at all, as most people assumed, just following him around and keeping him company for some reason. More like a friend than a pet, if that made sense. Somehow, she'd never thought to wonder what Fawkes's name actually was. She was a bit curious what exactly the emblem was supposed to be. Probably a family crest of some kind. Did phoenixes have formalised clans or something? She didn't actually know. Hmm.

There was one thing to add to her list of topics to research, she guessed.

Not pausing a second to answer the Weasleys' questions, she gave them a quick nod of thanks, then turned to leave the room, the castle and its inhabitants a subtle presence in the back of her mind.

* * *

 _October 6th, 1995_

* * *

Charissa smoothly walked into the hallway, falling into step right behind her targets. 'Gaunts.'

The familiar pair of figures — both now a fair bit taller than herself, she saw with some annoyance — visibly jumped at her unexpected appearance, stopping their easy walk away from Charms class and whirling on their heels to face her. 'Charissa!' Alex said just under a bright shout, face split into a smile. 'Well, this is a surprise.'

'Yes,' said Hesper, his voice more a low drawl, eyes very obviously trailing downward. 'A pleasure to see you as always, of course.'

Charissa somehow managed to not roll her eyes — _that_ hadn't been subtle at all. 'This was your last class of the day, right?'

The Gaunts looked momentarily disoriented by Charissa not playing along with the whole expected social niceties thing and just getting right to the point, blinking silently at her for a couple seconds. Which Charissa thought was a little silly. She would figure they'd have gotten used to her by now. Finally, one of them (it didn't really matter which) said, 'Ah, yes, nothing more today.'

'Did you have anything planned this afternoon you can't miss?'

'Er...' The Gaunts glanced at each other. Charissa did have to wonder exactly why they did things like that. 'No? I mean, we were going to meet up with the Carrows—' Hesper glanced over his shoulder as Alex kept speaking, checking to see if the Carrows were lingering, but Charissa had seem them walk off, seemingly not noticing the Gaunts had been intercepted. '—to get our Runes work for the weekend done, but we could skip it. Why?'

Even after a few years, Charissa still wasn't sure what to think about the two sets of Slytherin twins being such close friends. Other than some relief she wasn't in their year, of course, she knew from Jasper the four were a consistent disturbance even during classes. Anyway, she didn't bother answering their question. She just raised an eyebrow a tick, said 'Follow me,' and turned to walk off again.

The twins hesitated a moment, she felt, their shared mind buzzing with confusion and curiosity. As a hopeful tinge of rising excitement started washing the rest out, they kicked into motion, quite nearly skipping in her wake.

She wasn't sure if that was more exasperating or adorable.

Down a hall and up a rickety staircase squirrelled in a corner, and Charissa was leading the pair into the room she'd prepared beforehand. One of the absurdly numerous abandoned classrooms throughout the castle, all the desks and chairs already shrunk and stowed, the room nothing but blank, uninterrupted stone. Except for the thick layers of privacy and protection spells, but she couldn't actually see those, as well as her bag waiting in a corner, since she had needed to put all that furniture somewhere.

As the twins blinked around at the room, clearly confused, Charissa moved for her bag, pulling at her wrist. She turned back to face them as she reached it, just in time to meet Hesper's question. 'What are we doing here?'

'You're going to fight me.' With ease born of repetition, Charissa swiftly loosened both straps of her wand holster in quick succession, dropping the thing inside her bag.

They glanced at each other again. 'Both of us?'

'Yes.'

'At once?'

'Yes.' Her second holster joining the first, she kicked her bag, turning it so the open end was facing the corner. The enchantment in the bag should prevent anything in there from being damaged by any errant spells, or at least anything they were likely to be casting. That taken care of, she started walking for the middle of the room.

Still looking intensely confused, the twins said, in unison, ' _Why?'_

She shrugged. She would admit this was a bit odd, but she was just weird sometimes. 'I have to be sure.'

'Sure you can beat the shite out of us, you mean.'

She stopped, turning to face them again. 'Yes.'

They just frowned at her. 'Why?'

'I don't know if I can explain it. Before I can be comfortable doing anything with you two, I have to be sure.'

Somehow, they looked even _more_ confused than they'd been a second ago. 'You're saying you have to be sure you can overpower us whenever you want before you can be at all physically intimate with us.'

Charissa shrugged. 'Something like that, yes.'

She realised it was weird. She couldn't really explain it, even to herself, in her own head. It hadn't been an issue with anyone she'd been with before — she'd always known she could overwhelm any of them if she truly felt she had to, she overpowered all of them by enough they were barely even a discernible threat. The only possible exception was Bell, who she _still_ couldn't match in a duel reliably, but without the limits imposed by tournament rules she'd likely have a better shot, and that first time had been extremely spur-of-the-moment in any case.

Well, and Dora, but Dora was both family and unflinchingly loyal, Charissa found her inherently nonthreatening. Dora was one of the very few people she'd met she couldn't imagine consciously hurting her, so Charissa didn't need to be able overpower her.

The situation with the twins was somewhat different. It hadn't occurred to her until a week or two after they'd started Hogwarts again, one instance after another of the silly things showing up to cling all over her, paired with nearly constant and very direct flirting. Not sure "flirting" was even a good word for it, the offer wasn't subtle at all. It wasn't until Charissa had finally decided to take them up on that offer, if only to hopefully get them to be marginally less annoying, when she'd realised she had a problem.

The Gaunts were skilled duellists themselves. And there were two of them. Even worse, their profound twin bond granted them an unnatural degree of coordination, enough that in doubles they'd managed to take out teams far and away more skilled and more experienced.

Charissa wasn't sure she could beat them. For all that she'd improved since starting more intensive lessons with her mother, for all she had them handily outclassed in terms of raw magical power _and_ trained skill, she still wasn't sure she could take them both in a straight fight.

Not that she thought she would necessarily ever have to. It was obvious the twins liked her, to put it mildly. She didn't even need to be a legilimens to know that, but the additional insight she got into their mind obliterated any doubt. Since Hesper — thus, in a way, both of them — was to marry her one day, there would be no advantage in harming her even should they want to. The twins were intelligent enough to realise that, and clever enough not to sabotage themselves. While she didn't exactly trust them to act in her interest selflessly, she certainly trusted them to act in their own interest selfishly, so she almost certainly had nothing to fear from them.

So she didn't think it was likely. But, even so, against all logic it was irrelevant, the knowledge that they possibly _could_ overpower her if they chose to made her feel... _vulnerable_.

Charissa _hated_ feeling vulnerable.

Hence, the entire purpose of this exercise. She'd intentionally divested herself of anything enchanted that could conceivably give her even the smallest advantage — hence the very simple, comparatively form-fitting leggings and shirt of muggle make they'd taken the opportunity to leer at at first sight. She'd left both her wands aside. Both of the Gaunts would attack her at once. And if she beat them anyway, despite the disadvantage, that would be all the proof she needed. Even should they decide to betray her, she could successfully defend herself, so there was no particular need to worry about it. If she _couldn't_ defeat them...

Well, she'd figure out how to deal with that if it happened.

After a long silence of their own, apparently thinking through the oddness of the situation, Alex said, 'This won't be much of a fight.' Charissa only had a moment to be _very_ annoyed before she continued. 'We can't really do any wandless magic.'

Oh. Well, of course. Shrugging off her temporary fury at the misunderstanding, Charissa said. 'Yes, I know. That's why you'll be using your wands.'

They both looked at her as though she were completely insane. 'Er...'

She glared at them, hoping her expression would communicate she was entirely serious, and they better obey if they knew what was good for them. 'You will use your wands. And you won't go easy on me either. You will come at me with _absolutely everything_ you have. Ignore tournament rules if you think it'll give you a better shot.'

They glanced at each other again. 'Er... What we can use is still limited, you know. If we don't want Dumbledore running down here asking why we're throwing around dangerous black hexes and curses.'

'I put an isolation ward over this room. Don't worry about it.' Dumbledore was out of the castle currently anyway — it hadn't taken her long to notice, once she had Mum's altered Map working, that Dumbledore spent more time out of the castle than in it — but there was no telling when he'd be coming back. All that accumulated magical energy _would_ be released when she dropped the ward, but it would just be undifferentiated black magic by that point, impossible to tell exactly which spells had created it. Would probably make Dumbledore paranoid, but he would have insufficient evidence to recreate the event or trace it back to them.

Knowing Dumbledore, he'd likely blame her for it anyway, but that wasn't the point. He couldn't _do_ anything about it, so it didn't matter.

The twins still looked very confused, staring at her in clear disbelief. Then they glanced at each other one more time, shrugged, and drew their wands, the motion identical and in perfect synchronisation, started slinking across the room, opening space between them as they made to circle her from both sides. Charissa didn't move an inch, still standing there with her feet together and hands relaxed at her sides. Once the twins were around her enough to make roughly a right angle, they paused, staring at her warily. Waiting for her to move probably, but she didn't, still waiting, staring steadily directly between them, patiently watching them in her peripheral.

With minuscule sighs, both of the twins moved, tiny little half steps driving sharp twists of their wands, a pair of familiar bright purple spellglows, a common black variant of a stunning charm, burst simultaneously from the tips. Charissa pivoted and leaned out of the way of the one making for a spot high on her shoulder, deflecting the one aimed low on her hips into the ground with a flex of magic and an easy flick of her fingers. Focusing on her slight irritation they'd tried something so easy, Charissa brought the feeling forward, pulling it over her as thick as she could, drew her magic through the lens of the black emotion. Thoughts filled with blades, sharp and cutting and splitting, she forced the magic down an arm, single finger inscribing a wide spiral in the air, a red-black spellglow lifting away to spin off directly toward Hesper.

She could feel their shock thick in the air, which wasn't too surprising — that was a black severing curse she'd just cast, and not a weak one either, the way she'd formed it into an overlapping spiral making it even harder to shield against. Very easily deadly. But Hesper didn't flinch an instant, ducking a bit to the side even as he brought up a pale orange shield charm, the tendrils of her curse he hadn't avoided flaring and dissipating. Even as Charissa brought up her own shield, Alex's white vertigo hex splashing away against it.

That wouldn't do. Summoning her old fury with Draco over how he'd treated Hermione until she'd put a stop to it, Charissa drew a stream of energy into both hands — sidestepped a nasty bludgeoning curse even as she ducked under a purging charm (the healing charm instead of the hex, clever) — released it with a hiss of, ' _Calōre vindicō.'_ The temperature of the air around her instantly shot up several degrees, turning dry and sharp, as intensely bright flames in blues and whites sprung from her fingers, stretching across the room straight for either Gaunt, tongues wide and thick, the air about them shimmering.

Which just gave the Gaunts opportunity to prove exactly why they're so good at this shite. They both rolled to the side out of the way, unnaturally quickly and unnaturally far, probably using a featherlight or a banishing charm or a combination of the two, in seconds outrunning the flames, standing exactly on either side of her. Before she could redirect her fire charm somewhere more useful, she felt one of them prepare a summoning charm. Just in case, she dropped the charm, leaving the fires she'd already conjured to burn themselves out, cast a simple little thing to anchor herself to the ground, readied herself to resist a summoning charm—

—which never came. She saw Alex hop slightly into the air, knew without seeing Hesper had done the same, then the summoning charm was released. From _both_ twins, on _each other_. As a Gaunt rocketed in at her from both sides, both already thick with rising black magic, Charissa hastily dispelled the charm holding herself in place, hopped slightly herself, firing off a banishing charm at an angle at the floor to her side. The room tilting dizzyingly around her, stomach lurching, she frantically tried to spot the floor she was about to hit, or possibly the wall, but the mess was too confusing, so gave up, cast a repelling barrier around herself instead. She barely managed it in time, her downward motion coming to a sharp end a split-second later. The friction the ground made against her shield was less than a true physical object would have experienced — not that she entirely understood why there should be any friction at all, magic was weird like that sometimes — but there was still enough to draw the shield into an uncontrollable spin, the room reduced to nothing as she tried to ignore the nausea rising up her throat.

After a second or two, there was another jarring slam as she came against the wall, Charissa dispelling the shield before any leftover momentum she had could send her rolling off again. She came down hard on her shoulder, but she ignored the pain from the impact, pushed herself to her feet. Or she tried to, anyway — the world was still swirling around her, stomach high in her throat and head light and buzzing, sending her stumbling to the side and pitching to a knee before she could take a step.

Okay. That could have gone better.

She could still barely see, the room streaked blurs, but she felt a rush of black magic falling in at her anyway. Wait, not black magic — a black curse _and_ a white curse at the same time. That was brilliant, actually, any shield she cast would only be able to block one of the two, the other would slip right through. But never mind that now, she could be impressed later. She didn't bother trying to stand, just dove to the side, shoving at the floor with one foot to push herself into a roll. The charms splashed against the ground behind her, her leg clearing them by inches.

' _Flamma impulsāns—'_ she said, pushing herself unsteadily to her knees. Flickering, stinging magic crawling up her chest, her skin tingling from spine to fingertip, both hands coming to the floor in front of her. '— _assurge!'_ A wall of flame a deep orange-red, tall to scrape the ceiling and nearly wide enough to bisect the room, the heat nipping at her face and arms. Hands lifting from the ground, both pushing outward, ' _Ēverte!'_ The wall of fire rushed away from her, sweeping across the room in a inexorable wave, flickering and crackling and hissing.

Charissa ignored it, took the momentary reprieve to bring herself to her feet. They hadn't been caught by that, she knew — she could see in their head they were casting an elemental shield, they were fine — so she had to recover as quickly as she could. She finally got to her feet, unsteady, still shaking a little. Bent half over, hands on her knees, she took a moment to simply breathe, struggling against the nausea still filling her throat.

Yeah. Could have gone better. The smart thing would have been to just conjure something around her for the Gaunts to ram themselves into, but she couldn't really do that without a wand...

Not for the first time, she wished she weren't so shite with water elemental magic. Some ice right then would have been great.

Speaking of elemental magic, the twins were definitely doing something. All that fire had left enough smoke she still couldn't see them, but she could taste it rising in the air, feel the focus in their— Ah, a lightning spell. A pair of them, actually. That wouldn't be too hard to get rid of, she would just—

No. No, wait. She had a better idea. She drew her own power back from her fingers, letting the magic of Hogwarts slip into its place, honey thick and blood warm, pushed it back out, deftly inscribing runes in sharp whites and soft blacks. Three simple runes, activating them with a snap of power, throwing the spell into the floor in front of her. Nothing happened.

But then, nothing was supposed to.

She waited for the twins' attack to come, but she didn't have to wait long. Soon blue-purple lightning was crawling across the air, snapping and screaming. Fast enough Charissa moved instantly, raising a hand, pointing a single finger at the approaching illusory electricity, ordered, ' _Obvertite!'_

Against an elemental charm this destructive, this powerful, that normally wouldn't work. Not without Charissa putting more power into it than was quite wise, at least. But with the help of the runic amplifying charm she'd prepared, it hardly took any power at all, at least not a noticeable drain, and the storm of lightning was halted in place, dragged into a shivering ball. Shivering, straining, she could feel the twins trying to force the spell out of its containment.

Well, that wouldn't do. Still pointing at the barely-restrained elemental magic, her hair pulled away from her skin by the static thickening the air, Charissa took a long, low breath in through her nose. ' _Is-ã lũgesat.'_ The instant she felt the struggle for control over the spell start, Charissa _pulled_ , violently ripping the magic away from the twins; she heard them cry out, in shock or pain, but she ignored it. The ball of lightning settled, compressing further, until it was a thick sea of sharp, blue-purple light, the air around it shivering with contained power.

She took another slow breath. This was going to be a hell of a thing.

' _Prō mē elementa, meum nexum subīte, et in meā manū vigēte.'_ A hot, unpleasant shiver running up her spine, a painful crackling racing across her skin, Charissa winced as the lightning split and swirled, flowing almost like a gas or liquid, forming into a tight, flashing hemisphere around her. She tested it only for a moment, reaching out to the energy around her not with her fingers, not with her magic, but with her mind — the process was very similar to legilimency, in fact. The elemental magic didn't feel like a conscious mind, not exactly, a chaotic and disorganised and tempestuous storm of power and anticipation and glee, at once too thin and too intense to really be a person. But she felt it shift as she forced her intent into its primitive essence, her trick had obviously worked.

No reason to delay, then. She imagined the lightning parting before her, and it did, pulling back to form two arms extending out from both sides. She quickly spotted the twins, wands half-lowered, staring at the impossibly stationary lightning snapping and squealing all around her, numbly blinking.

Charissa smirked.

She took a few steps closer to the twins, the magic moving with her. It was the easiest thing in the world, hardly even conscious — she simply imagined the lightning leaping forward, splitting into two separate streams to strike at each of the Gaunts, and it _did_. The screaming rivers of power were deflected by simultaneous shield charms, the orange defences cast with a very clear air of desperation. At a thought, both streams pooled, forming into concentrated balls of lightning once again, before both split into three separate bursts of far more natural-looking stabbing bolts. Even as they shot straight for their targets, Charissa prepared a pair of black binding curses, one in each hand, tossed them off for the twins. Desperately, _barely_ , the twins both managed to escape, by the skin of their teeth.

'Is this all you two have?' She brought the lightning around again with the slightest thought, negligently shooting off stinging and bludgeoning hexes in a thin rain, the twins too busy shielding and dancing to even think to retaliate. When Hesper took a grazing hit from a slice of lightning, limping away and hissing in pain, Charissa failed to hold back a low chuckle. 'I expected better than this. I'll admit, I think I might be a little disap—'

It happened so quickly Charissa didn't have time to react. There wasn't even any warning from the twins' mind, apparently acting on instinct. Their seemingly random evasions suddenly brought the two together, Hesper going down to a knee, a shouted incantation raising an unfamiliar black and purple shield charm. Whatever it was, it held back the lightning strikes falling an instant after it'd appeared without even flickering. Before Charissa could even blink, Alex was already facing her, back straight, eyes narrowed with visible fury, hair wild and slick with sweat. Voice half-choked with a shocking degree of rage and hatred, she snarled, ' _Cruciō!'_

Charissa was so blindsided by the use of an Unforgivable she completely forgot to avoid it.

The blood red spellglow struck her straight in the chest, hitting like a bludger burning red-hot, blinding sparks of agony spreading across her nerves. Charissa stumbled back a few steps, her vision flickering, teeth clenched, but she managed to keep to her feet, if only barely. Just as soon as it'd started, the pain was gone, the sudden relief leaving her gasping. That hadn't been that bad. Obviously, Alex didn't _actually_ want to hurt her, even Mum's very reluctant demonstration of it this summer had hurt worse than that. But it was enough to break Charissa's focus, her control over the lightning shattered, the last flickers already vanishing to nothing, enough to give the Gaunts a breather, Alex passing her wand over the burn along Hesper's leg.

Her breath still hard and thick in her throat, still shivering with dull aftershocks from the _cruciātus_ , Charissa felt herself smiling. Apparently, the Gaunts _were_ taking this seriously.

Later, she wouldn't be able to say exactly how long it went, in the end. It was the hardest duel she'd ever fought, painful and dirty and exhausting and desperate, seemingly going on and on and on. It would all be reduced to an indistinguishable blur — curses and hexes, elemental charms and shields, a bit of haphazard conjuring from the twins, grasping at their mind with her own only to feel it twisting away, feelings and memories not her own joining the confusing mix of impressions, she couldn't sort it out.

But she knew one thing. She couldn't even remember how it happened, to be completely honest, how the chaotic nonsense of the fight got to this moment, how she'd pulled it off. But it didn't truly matter. All that mattered was that it had.

Eventually, throat raw from breath, clothes heavy from sweat, shaking with adrenaline and exhaustion, she was staring down at the twins, one on his hands and knees, the other on her back desperately gasping, their wands in her hand.

She'd been so out of it, it'd happened so suddenly, it took a moment for it to make sense. She stared down at the twins, blinking, every once in a while glancing at the wands in her hand, eyes flicking back and forth. She'd summoned these, she remembered that. There had been a lot of fire, and a lot of yelling, she didn't know exactly... She remembered summoning them, but...

She'd won.

The realisation crashing over her in a soothing wave, Charissa collapsed to her knees, shaking so hard she could barely sit, head heavy and fuzzy. Blinking, she turned toward the corner of the room, summoned her bag with an unsteady wave of her hand. It slid across the floor to her, and she pulled it open, shuffling through the contents. She'd prepared potions, of course, she wasn't an idiot. She downed a couple herself, than poured a few down each Gaunt's throat — they were far more badly injured than her, scorched and bleeding in places, shivering with the aftereffects of black hexes. A couple healing charms to take care of the balance the potions wouldn't handle, and she was done.

She sat back to wait for them to recover. The smile on her face was so wide to be painful, but that wasn't too surprising — she was feeling incredibly pleased with herself right now, almost giddy.

'Okay,' Alex said, voice thick and slow, blankly staring up at the ceiling. 'Let's _not_ do that again any time soon.'

Charissa shrugged. 'I don't know. Didn't you have fun?'

Their mind was shivering a bit with clear amusement, but Hesper turned a glare on her anyway. 'Of course _you_ had fun. Winning is fun.'

'No reason to pout at me, Hesper. You two did quite well, not bad at all.' She felt her smile tilt, shifting into a smirk. 'Besides, I think I know a way I can make it up to you.'

'How?' In unison again — out of nowhere, she found herself wondering how they decided who would say what. Hmm.

Charissa put a hand to the floor, reached for her magic. It came just as easily and smoothly as it had at the beginning of the fight, but that wasn't a surprise. The Blessing had given her inhuman magical power, of course, it was her body and mind that had nearly failed her. She pushed a softening charm into the hard stone floor, more and more and more, until she felt it give under her, visibly sinking under the Gaunts. That felt good enough. 'Take off your clothes.'

They blinked at her. 'Huh?'

She didn't bother saying anything aloud, just raised a single eyebrow.

'What, right now? After all that?'

'All these weeks pestering me, and you'd really rather wait? I have nowhere else I need to be. And there are more potions in my bag if you need them.'

For long seconds, the Gaunts just stared at her. Eyes flat, faces empty, minds an indistinguishable jumble of uncertainty and affection and exasperation. They glanced at each other.

Then they sighed, eyes turning up to the ceiling, and started kicking off their shoes.

At first, just for a moment, Charissa sat unmoving, watching the Gaunts as they undressed, not even bothering to moderate the smug grin she felt on her lips.

* * *

 _December 23rd, 1995_

* * *

Trying to keep as much of her frustration off her voice as possible — by this point, very much a lost cause — Charissa said, 'Are we there yet?'

Leading Charissa along by his fingers around her wrist, she didn't have to be able to see Hesper or feel his thoughts to know he was smiling. Of course, at the moment, she couldn't actually do either: the aggravating boy had _somehow_ convinced her to consent to being put under a blinding hex, a pendant enchanted to contain mind magic hung around her neck. Apparently, the twins had decided these absurd measures were necessary to ensure their surprise remained a surprise. 'Not yet. Just a little further.'

Charissa had absolutely no idea what this surprise was — Hesper had been very careful to avoid thinking about it until her legilimency was sufficiently blocked. She'd been invited to the Gaunt family home for the day, which had been fascinating enough on its own. Unlike most seats of Noble Houses, and even more unusual for a Most Ancient House, Lady Merope's manor was very new, as such things went. They'd only broken ground in the Forties, she'd been told, and that was just to put a much smaller house on the current site. Over the decades, as the House accrued new wealth to replace that that had long been lost, the original house had been remodeled, expanded, then expanded again, and again, and again. The twins remembered the latest stage of construction, only completing when they'd been nine.

And the place was fascinating. Most manors had been around long enough many modern techniques in enchanting and especially alchemy hadn't yet been developed. Leuteris, boundlessly curious magical scholar as he was, had adapted whatever clever innovations he could; Merope, less enthusiastic but more appreciative of the statement the display made, had consented to all of his wildest ideas. The manor was, of course, larger on the inside than the outside, but that wasn't the limit of the space-bending tricks going on in here. Charissa had noticed right away that, despite the twins' rooms being on the second floor, she hadn't needed to climb any stairs to get there. Also oddly, the hallway from their rooms to the centre of the common areas of the family wing — sitting rooms, library, casual dining room, kitchen, that sort of thing — had been a straight shot, and a very short one. The twins had claimed, and Charissa had confirmed with a little exploring, that the same was true of _everyone's_ rooms, not just theirs. Which, by the very basic principles of geometry, was absolutely impossible. The interior of the manor wasn't just expanded, but the internal structure warped, thoroughly enough Charissa doubted it would be possible to draw a contiguous floor plan.

After trying to process all that, Charissa had barely blinked when Áine had claimed both sunrise and sunset could be seen through the same bank of windows in the sitting room. And it was almost certainly true, since she _had_ been there during sunset once already, the riotously colouring sky spread before her despite that she would have sworn those windows were facing east.

It was best not to think about it too hard, she'd quickly decided.

The materials were fascinating enough themselves. Stone enchanted warm and smooth, bits of crystal here and there alchemised to glow with soft inner light. In some places, ceilings alchemised to be even more fully transparent than glass — one room in particular was a sizeable garden, _indoors_ , not that it was easy to tell standing within, sun shining down and environmental charms setting a warm breeze to blowing. Some of the floors were alchemised to _appear_ like a river surface, light glinting and flickering off the tops of slight rippling waves, a few feet of clean and clear water only slightly diminishing the view of the bottom, pebbles of granite and agate sparkling like half-hidden diamonds. The illusion was so perfect Charissa had hesitated a few seconds before bringing herself to walk across it, some instinctual part of her deeply confused by the juxtaposition between the river she saw and the smooth stone tile she felt.

After her legilimency had been muzzled, she'd been allowed to peruse Leuteris's library, which had been just as fascinating. Especially since he hadn't gone in ahead of time and removed the volumes not _entirely_ legal in Britain. Being the unabashed polymath he was — sometimes Charissa was a bit surprised Leuteris hadn't been in Ravenclaw, to be honest — Charissa had very rarely seen such a bounteous collection of obscure knowledge. The temple library she'd been granted access in Kemet, perhaps, but most of that she hadn't been able to even _attempt_ to read. The majority of this library was in other languages, granted, but perhaps half of it was a mix of French and Aquitanian. While she doubted she'd be able to speak Aquitanian well at all, she could decipher it written without too much trouble, and of course her French was more than adequate.

Needless to say, she'd been so thoroughly distracted while she waited for whatever the hell this surprise was to be ready she'd entirely forgotten to be impatient.

Now, however, she was getting a bit annoyed. With a lot of whining and pouting and cajoling, Hesper had convinced her to submit herself to being blinded and guided to the right room. She was _not_ pleased. By this point, she was mostly willing to trust the twins. Not entirely without reservation, of course, but enough to assume there wasn't any sinister intent wrapped up in this nonsense. Granted, she had mostly come to trust the twins as much as she did by being a massive bloody cheater — it'd been clear they'd liked her before, quite a bit at that, but since they'd started having sex Charissa had noticed a gradual intensifying in their more affectionate feelings for her. Though, interestingly, while their internal thoughts and feelings had shifted significantly, their external behaviour had hardly changed at all, enough she was half-certain she never would have even noticed if she weren't half inside their shared mind every time they were in a room together. They'd never thought about it explicitly in her presence, so this was a guess, but she was pretty sure the twins were intentionally avoiding being overly sentimental with her, aware she wasn't inclined to such displays, and was likely to simply be made uncomfortable with anything of the sort.

To be completely honest, she thought that might be one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for her. She was aware that sounded a bit odd, but she appreciated it rather a lot. The twins were annoying sometimes, yes, but at least they understood her enough and were considerate enough to remove an unnecessary potential annoyance for her before the problem even started presenting itself.

So, while she was generally inclined these days to tolerate their more directly aggravating moods, that didn't mean she was entirely unaffected. She did _not_ appreciate being partially bound and blinded as she was now. It made her feel far too vulnerable. And she _hated_ feeling vulnerable. But she knew rationally she was as safe here as she was anywhere, so she did her best to ignore it, to contain her reflexive need to strike back as much as she could. Her voice still more or less even, she hissed, 'This is very annoying, you realise that.'

'I figure it would be.' Of course, his voice was entirely absent of any remorse or guilt whatsoever.

She clenched her teeth, fighting back another flash of anger. Useless, she was fine, stop it. 'I have no idea why I consented to this.'

Now with a faint trace of amusement, Hesper said, 'Actually, I'm still a little surprised you did.'

Fruitlessly, she glared through the blackness in his general direction. 'I hate you.'

'Mm-hmm,' he hummed, sounding entirely unaffected. But, then, he wouldn't be — she actually said things like that or exactly that rather often, and he had to realise by now she didn't mean them.

So, one had to wonder why she bothered saying this shite. She just...did. She didn't know. It wasn't like she claimed to perfectly understand herself all the time, after all. 'You know, one day, eventually, I _will_ murder you.' That one might actually be true, come to think of it. Something could come up to make such a thing necessary, but even if it didn't, she could see the twins requesting she end their lives quickly, rather than let them age into obsolescence. Not that they knew she would inevitably be in a position to, of course, she hadn't yet seen fit to inform them about the Blessing.

Somewhat to her surprise, Hesper chuckled under his breath. 'Yes,' he said, his voice smooth, 'the perfect crime. They _never_ suspect the wife, ever.'

She rolled her temporarily useless eyes. 'Smart arse.'

Suddenly bright and cheerful, he chirped, 'Yep!' She heard a door click open, an incomprehensible jumble of whispered voices washing over her. 'Anyway, we're here.' Without another second's pause, he dispelled the hex over her eyes.

For a moment, she could only blink, momentarily dazzled by deep orange light. Slowly, painfully, details started to distinguish themselves. A moodily-lit circular room, a collection of people arrayed around a rectangular table of black stone. On the opposite side from her were a few familiar Gaunts — Lady Merope, Lord Leuteris and his wife Lady Móirín, the twins' parents Áine and Fidelis. The people on the near side mostly had their backs to her, but even so she recog—

She blinked, blankly staring as Aunt Alice turned to raise a curious eyebrow at her. The slighter figure to her side was definitely Gwyneira, the man to her other side definitely Frank, the woman on his other side had to be Lady Augusta. What was...

Then she noticed who sat at the head of the table. On the far side of the double-wide chair, that was _definitely_ Neville, she would recognise him anywhere, looking only faintly uncomfortable. Next to him, her hair meticulously pinned up as it only ever was for formal occasions, was Alexis. Quill in her hand poised over a long sheet of parchment, eyes steady on Charissa's own, a silent question on her face.

Charissa made the connection in an instant. She lifted a hand to point at Alex with a single finger, and said, the hardness in her tone making it an obvious order, 'Sign it.' She whipped the stupid necklace off, letting out a relieved sigh as her mind stretched out, the thoughts and feelings of the others in the room warm and soft against her. She'd gotten used to that always being there now, she just felt somehow wrong without it.

A grin splitting her face, Alex signed with an overdone flourish, then slammed the quill down on the table. 'There.' Turning her grin on Neville, she said, 'You're ours now. There is no escape.'

As the adults went on with their own chattering, Neville let out a somewhat awkward chuckle, giving Charissa a half-curious half-confused look. 'Yeah, I guess not.'

By this point, a few steps in head of Charissa, Hesper had come to a stop behind Alex. While she just kept grinning, he pointed at her with both hands, voice turning thick and overly-dramatic. 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.'

Doing her best to repress any external trace of her own amusement — partially pointless, with two other legilimens in the room — Charissa came around Hesper to lean against the chair behind Neville, shaking her head. 'That was terrible.' She noticed Gwyneira watching her, wiggled a few fingers in a wave, getting a soft smile in return.

She had to focus a bit more on keeping her lips even when she felt Gwyneira idly imagining exactly how this relationship with the four of them was going to work — imagining quite graphically, of course.

When she came back to what was going on around her, Áine, evidently not too distracted by the adults' conversation, was saying, 'Yeah, I could have done without that comment.'

Alice, a very familiar smirk crossing her face, said, 'I don't know, I thought it was funny.'

With an odd combination of a grimace and a tolerant smile — if anyone should be accustomed to Alice being Alice — Frank reached over to pat his wife on the arm. 'Don't encourage the little demons, dear.'

Neville actually felt somewhat amused. Clearly despite himself, not entirely pleased with his own reaction, but it was obviously there. 'Dad, if there's one thing I've learned about these two the last few years, it's that it doesn't matter what you do. They don't need to be encouraged, and can't really be discouraged. They'll do whatever they feel like regardless.'

'Aww, Neville.' Alex leaned against her future husband, her voice high and breathless, mind thick with amusement. 'I swear, _such_ a romantic.'

'Er...' Neville's confusion was so thick in the air she could almost taste it. That wasn't the only thing slowing his attempt to respond to that, of course — he was clearly very distracted by the feel of Alex pressing up against him. Not that she could blame him for that, mind, and Alex _was_ doing that on purpose. Given the way they were sitting, it would have to be on purpose for her comparatively minuscule breasts to be as obvious against his arm as Charissa could see in his mind they were. When he'd at least partially gathered himself, Neville twisted around to look up at Charissa. 'That was teasing, right?'

Charissa smiled. She was tempted to ask which part he meant, but quickly decided she shouldn't embarrass him in front of his parents and grandmother more than necessary. 'Yes, that one was teasing.' Mostly teasing, anyway. She was certain Alex knew about those little flings he'd had with a couple of their year-mates, so likely knew as well as Charissa did that Neville could sort of get that way. Not the point, though.

'Right, okay.'

Suddenly leaning in and taking her arm, Hesper let out a high, ecstatic, ' _Oooohhh,'_ before finally seeming to remember how to speak English. 'This is so exciting! So great, couldn't have turned out better.'

Alex nodded, arms more firmly encircling a slightly helpless-feeling Neville. 'Yes, very true. One big happy Gaunt–Potter family. I love it.'

'Gonna have to work out where exactly we'll be living.'

'And start looking for a nice bed big enough.'

'We can just transfigure it. I'm sure Charissa will be able to anchor it with runic casting by then.'

Despite that they weren't really paying attention to her right now, Charissa nodded. She could probably do that right now, in fact. It wasn't something she'd attempted before, and Mum hadn't explicitly taught her how, but anchoring a spell of any kind to local ambient magic shouldn't be difficult at all. Potentially dangerous if she fucked it up, but...

Anyway, the twins hadn't shut up quite yet. 'Four together, very comfy,' Hesper said, nodding.

Nodding in perfect time with her other half, Alex said, 'Four together, very warm.'

'Er...' Now Neville felt _very_ confused, and more than a little unsettled. He glanced between the twins for a couple seconds, eyes eventually making their way to Charissa's again. 'Was that...?'

Charissa shook her head. 'That one wasn't teasing. Well, mostly.' The fact the twins had decided to say that in current company, and the exact way they'd gone about it, _that_ was teasing, she guessed. But it wasn't just teasing in that Charissa was certain they were completely serious about the four of them sleeping together regularly. In senses both literal and metaphorical.

Which Charissa was, she could admit to herself, and probably Mum and _possibly_ Perry, more than slightly conflicted about. She'd been somewhat concerned about who exactly Alexis would end up marrying — the twins being so intimately bonded as they were, Alex's husband would inevitably be a major part of her life. Since she'd gotten them to agree to not marry anyone she didn't approve of, the worst of that concern had been ameliorated, leading her to the conclusion that she'd almost certainly be shagging whoever Alex married as well. But she was still somewhat leery of the whole thing.

Not that she was displeased it was Neville, of course. Neville was one of the most favourable options she could imagine. She approved, she _completely_ approved, enough she suspected she might be smiling despite her best efforts, in fact. But she did still have her reservations. Despite her...whatever she had going on with Tugwood, despite her admittedly rather frequent encounters with Hesper over the last couple months...

She was honest enough with herself to know she preferred women. She _definitely_ preferred women, it wasn't even close. The twins had split their electives, so they didn't have to repeat homework — they frequently complained about having to complete all the work for all their core classes twice — so there was a fair portion of time only one of the two was available. With how Charissa's own schedule worked out, Hesper was free at the same time she was more than Alex. But still, she'd sought out Alex far more times. Hesper a few times, yes, but not nearly as often.

And even then, partially just because the thought of Alex attempting to focus on class while half of her was having sex tickled her — Alex could feel whatever she did to Hesper just as well as Hesper himself could, after all. Apparently, both Alex and Hesper had had to resort to throwing notice-me-not charms over themselves to avoid making a scene more than once.

She'd observed a difference in her own behaviour, yes, but it also just felt different. Not to say she found Hesper entirely unattractive. Just...less. She _would_ fuck him, but she was never preoccupied with the thought of it when he wasn't around, as had started happening sometimes with Alex, never got that burning _need_ to touch him the way she did her. She'd actually found herself pretending he _was_ Alex more than once which, to be honest, wasn't hard to do. There was no real difference in their behaviour. Their mind was the same irrespective of which half she was looking at. If she ignored the mild differences between their voices, they spoke the same way. Their mouths were shaped slightly different, but not enough it was noticeable snogging them. Limited to their hands and their mouths, their technique was identical. It was only actual intercourse that shattered the illusion, really.

She'd admitted to the twins she didn't like that very much at all, but she still did it. (When she was alone with Hesper, anyway — they could take care of it themselves the occasions they were both there.) She tolerated it, because she felt she sort of had to. It didn't seem right somehow to have him get her off, then not return the favour, so to speak. When she'd admitted all this, as a preemptive explanation for not seeming exactly enthused about it, oral as a possible alternative had come up, but she'd shot it down immediately. She didn't at all mind doing that for girls — in fact, she found the noises they made and how they tended to squirm endlessly entertaining — but she'd never done it with a bloke, and she _would_ never. She couldn't even explain exactly why. Some part of her she couldn't name just rejected the entire idea out of hand. So, she tolerated taking Hesper inside of her, she allowed it, planned to continue allowing it for decades to come, but it wasn't something she anticipated she would ever enjoy for itself.

Neville joining would realign the gender balance in this relationship quite a bit. She wasn't really comfortable with that. It would mean a bit more tolerating things she didn't really enjoy, but that was...fine. For Neville, she'd put up with it. She'd anticipated likely having some problems with whoever Alex's husband ended up being, hesitant to permit him to fuck her, but Neville she was fine with. Not _ecstatic_ about the idea, but he was allowed. In fact, if he'd thought to ask, she probably would have permitted it a long time ago, even without this whole quasi-marriage thing. She actually liked Neville, she was inclined to give him whatever he wanted to make him happy, especially when it costed her essentially nothing. Hell, she'd probably even let him direct things, so to speak, and she always slapped both Tugwood and Hesper down when they tried that.

It should go without saying, though, she would make it _very_ clear she was still in charge, so to speak. But she thought she would feel comfortable sacrificing some minimal control over the situation to him, something she couldn't say about Hesper.

At least not yet, anyway. She hadn't known Hesper nearly as long as she had Neville. It wasn't unthinkable she could change her mind later.

So, the sex part was somewhat complicated. Not so unpleasant she wouldn't deal with it, and if she was getting too frustrated with the whole thing she could always keep a female paramour or two...or five, or however many. Their betrothal contract hadn't stipulated she couldn't, after all, and she doubted the twins (or Neville) would object. In fact, the twins had even already joked a couple times about sharing. Not a big deal, that all she could deal with. Somewhat leery about the whole thing, but fine.

The _literal_ sleeping together though...

Ugh, that was going to be a pain. She'd never entirely grown accustomed to sharing a bed with Hermione, and she was _far_ less clingy than the twins could be. Hermione, at least, had seemed to need at least some of her own space to sleep properly, but the few times she'd actually slept with the twins so far were not nearly so convenient. They seemed to think she was the most comfortable pillow to ever exist, or something. It was very annoying. It was almost impossible to sleep with people all cuddled up all over her — the only exception she'd found so far, to her own surprise, was Perry, she didn't seem to mind him nearly so much. Odd. But anyway, adding _another_ person to the pile was just...

She hoped she got used to it eventually. It'd been hard enough semi-regularly sharing her bed with _one_ person, but doing it with _three_ , and for the next _century or more?_

Thankfully, she suspected the Blessing had reduced her need for sleep somewhat. Otherwise she might have had a major problem on her hands.

She'd been so distracted by her thoughts, she hadn't even noticed the collected Gaunts and Longbottoms starting on their way out of the room. Which was a bit embarrassing, yes, enough she'd had absolutely no choice in hexing the twins' amusement off both their faces.

* * *

 _April 18th, 1996_

* * *

It was something she'd done a thousand times. She hadn't really been thinking.

Bella was bored. Honestly, she was bored rather a lot, but that didn't make it any less _annoying_. She couldn't read anymore without risking her head _exploding_ , Clíona was being a bitch, Énna was in bed already for some unfathomable reason, who honestly knew where the fuck Astoria was, and she was _bored_. She had considered running off to find Charissa, but she didn't want to be annoying, and the twins would be just as good. Alex and Hesper were always a good balm for boredom. They could be a bit annoying sometimes...frequently...whatever, the point was they were interesting people — she still wasn't certain whether the plural was technically appropriate — and every time she was in their presence they did _something_ amusing. And, really, she would have to be a massive hypocrite to fault them for being annoying.

That she _was_ a massive hypocrite was entirely beside the point.

So, she was going to their room, because she was _bored_ , and she needed to be entertained before she cursed someone. She nearly had already. Clíona had been sitting there going about her usual babbling self-aggrandisement, and Bella had been growing increasingly tempted to set her hair on fire, or perhaps hit her with a scouring curse right in her _stupid face_. Sometimes she really had to wonder why she was friends with that infuriating cunt. But anyway, Gaunts, entertainment, yes. She'd gone down the boys' stairs at first — despite the fact that the Gaunts invariably slept in the same bed, they each had their own room, and they used Hesper's most often — but the little twats _weren't there!_ She'd stomped around a little bit, checked the bathroom just to be sure, but no, empty. Fuck. Somehow resisting the urge to set up a few prank jinxes as long as she'd been in there, she'd turned on her heel, and made her way back for the stairs.

She was still a couple doors down from Alex's room when she let out a little sigh of relief. Even from here, she could feel privacy charms on the door — they were inside. _Finally_. Bella walked up to the door, yanked at the handle, then stared at the door in surprise when it didn't budge. It was locked. Odd, the Gaunts never locked their door.

Well, that wasn't true. More than once, she'd come to their door only to find it locked, then charmed it open and barged in on them screwing. Each other, she meant. Everybody in Slytherin knew they did that — probably plenty of people in other houses by now — and Bella had to be one of the only people she knew who had barely blinked. While British mages didn't tend to freak out over incest _nearly_ as much as British muggles did, it was still something that was considered somewhat odd, especially to be doing on such a regular basis. So people did still whisper about it, give them odd looks on occasion.

Bella had just shrugged it off. Far as she could tell, the Gaunts were basically the same fucking person. She figured it was more akin to masturbation than anything, no reason to be silly over it.

But still, she did hesitate for a second, staring indecisively at the door. It didn't particularly bother her what Alex and Hesper may or may not get up to while they were alone together, didn't change how she thought about them at all, but that didn't mean she wanted to actually _see_ it. She'd walked in on them a few times by now, and every time it... It was just awkward.

She'd definitely taken those opportunities to get an eyeful of Alex, though. Hey, she was cute, okay.

Tapping at the door handle, Bella's eye's tipped toward the ceiling, her lips pursing a little. That was an interesting thought, she hadn't really seriously considered it. Was she just gay or something? She realised she was a little young to know these things for sure yet, but she had to wonder. She'd been having rather distracting thoughts about Luna and Astoria in particular, she'd have to be an idiot not to have noticed — not to mention her persistent obsession with Charissa, but since that'd been going on since she was eleven she wasn't sure it counted. Those times she had walked in on Alex and Hesper she'd barely even spared a glance for Hesper but, she was unashamed to admit, had stared almost uninterrupted at Alex for as long as she'd been able. The whole time feeling a bit...

It was something to consider. But not really important enough to consider it right now. Honestly, if it did turn out she was the dykiest little dyke to ever dyke it up with a bunch of dykes, she seriously doubted she would give a fuck.

Speaking of not giving a fuck? Fuck it. Bella flicked out her wand, with a deft little swish dispelled only the locking charm, leaving the rest alone — her still elementary wandless abilities she was working on under Charissa's direction were developed enough she could certainly cancel a locking charm, but not good enough to do it without disrupting the others thick upon the door. She pushed the door open, and took a—

Standing in the middle of the doorway, Bella jerked to a sudden halt. She hadn't been wrong: the Gaunts _were_ screwing.

 _But they weren't alone_.

For long seconds, Bella could only stare. She was so...so...astounded? Something like that. Anyway, it took her far longer than it should have to cast a notice-me-not over herself. She probably should have just left instead but, no, she stayed. Hidden, watching.

She really just couldn't help herself.

She was pretty sure that, right there, lying on her back on the bed, was Alex. It was sort of hard to tell, considering her face wasn't exactly visible at the moment, but she was almost entirely positive. About the right height, about the right figure, yes. And there was Hesper, kneeling on the bed, Alex's hips tipped at an uncomfortable-looking angle to give him a better...angle. Words. Because he was fucking her, see. Normally, that would be sufficiently distracting as to take all of her attention — she'd noticed Hesper's prick itself seemingly did absolutely nothing for her, but watching it slip in and out of Alex was still inexplicably _fascinating_ — but she honestly barely noticed. Something else in the room had irrevocably drawn absolutely all of the concentration she had to spare. Some _one_ else, to be precise.

Charissa was here. Charissa was completely, entirely, naked. Nothing on her at all, not a thing. Bella couldn't see quite everything — the angle from here was from the side and somewhat behind — but that was still plenty to be getting on with. Her hair all messed up and stringy with sweat, sticking to her back and neck and shoulders, normally pale skin, looking all smooth and soft and Jesus, her fingers were fucking twitching, but it was noticeably darker than it should be, turned a very obvious pink, more in some places than others, as though she were flushed with fever. Bella spent long, shameless moments letting her eyes trail over the back of her thigh, along the curve of her hip, following the visible lines of sweat streaking her back.

Bella shivered, forced herself to swallow. Her throat was so dry it nearly hurt.

 _God_ , she just wanted to—

She way she was moving was _extremely_ distracting. Because Charissa wasn't just sitting there. She was perched on her knees, the fingers of one hand twisted into Alex's hair, from what Bella could see from here that looked like it had to hurt a bit, the other Bella couldn't actually see, low between her legs somewhere, looked like. Not the only thing between her legs. Where she was, her knees were on either side of Alex's head, and...

Well, Bella may be a virgin, but it was still plainly obvious what was going on there.

And Charissa was just...moving. Rolling motions of her hips, occasionally hitching a bit as her shoulders would raise with a sharp breath the silencing charms covered up, her head occasionally tipping to the side, or falling forward, hair glued together with her own sweat flicking heavily, mouth and throat moving with moans Bella couldn't hear—

She had to. She had to hear.

Not fully aware of what she was doing, as though moving in a dream, Bella took a few steps forward, until she felt the tingle of the silencing charm slide over her skin, noise crashing over her in a piercing wave.

Hesper's voice she dismissed immediately. The odd, squishy, occasional slappy noises of him fucking Alex she intentionally _tried_ to ignore — that always sounded vaguely gross. Alex's whining moans were far more interesting, but they were a bit muffled at the moment. All that, she was aware of, but not really listening.

She was listening to Charissa.

Not that there was much to listen to. Just watching, Bella had assumed Charissa would be being far, well, louder than this. Just breathing — thickly and heavily, yes, but mostly just breathing. Occasionally, as a visible shudder went up her spine, her shoulders hitching as she'd noticed a few times, Charissa would let out a... Well, the word that immediately occurred to Bella was "whimper", but that didn't seem quite right somehow. That word, to Bella, had a connotation of, of weakness, she guessed. Bella couldn't imagine Charissa _weak_ , the concepts were mutually exclusive. High and nasally and fluttery, in any case, she didn't know what to call it otherwise.

For long seconds, she had no idea how long, Bella's world was reduced to those intermittent noises, sweet as honey on her ears, the fascinating shifting of her hips, barely visible bobbing of her breasts, more beads of sweat carving rivers down her back.

Was it just her, or was it rather hot in here?

She hadn't really been watching, but Hesper's hands must have been moving, because she suddenly noticed his fingers on her hips, trailing up her back. Bella drew in a sharp breath as the air was abruptly chilled with a jolt of enraged magic, Hesper's hands batted away by some invisible force. Her previously hidden hand lifting into view, Charissa contorted in place, turning to glare at Hesper. Her hand came around behind her back, fingers glowing with a faint purple aura, swiping across inches over Hesper's chest. Despite nothing visible happening, he let out a moan of...pain? Maybe pain. Flinched somewhat away in any case.

Wait. No. _Not_ nothing visible. His cringe brought his shoulders turning somewhat, giving her a partially-obstructed view of... What _was_ that? Whatever Charissa had hit him with hadn't broken the skin, no scratches or cuts, hadn't burned him. Instead, he suddenly had three narrow lines a riotous blue-purple, clearly bruises. What the fuck hex was that? Bella had never seen such a thing...

Her voice turning the air unnaturally heavy and cold — it could be her imagination, but Bella thought she saw the beginnings of ice crystals in Charissa's hair — eyes narrowed and lip curled, Charissa snarled, 'Did I _say_ you could touch me?'

Bella missed whatever Hesper said in response, blinking to herself. Belatedly, she noticed Alex's wrists were pinned high under Charissa's shins, effectively preventing her from using her hands — Bella would be surprised if she could move much at all, really. She... She really didn't know what to think about this.

She didn't know what to think about this _consciously_ , at least. Because as she realised what she was seeing, as one fact of what was going on here fell into place, Bella... Well, she didn't know how to describe it. She felt hot, impossibly hot with Charissa's anger still freezing the air, she felt somehow unsteady, knees shaking and back curling under her own weight, she felt shifty and...like her guts, her flesh and bone had suddenly been transfigured into jelly, the slightest push could see her toppling to the ground, the slightest breath melt her away.

But of course it didn't end there. Charissa turned back down, leaning and curling a bit to bring her face closer to Alex's. Bella noticed her knuckles shift somewhat, her wrist twisting, obviously not going easy on Alex's hair. It was hard to tell from this angle, but at the muffled, desperate whimper loosed from Alex — this one was _definitely_ a whimper — she thought Charissa might have smirked, just a lifted corner of her lips visible from here. 'Did I say _you_ could _stop?'_

A hot, pleasant rush sweeping over her skin, Bella shivered again. She couldn't help it, she couldn't stop it, her unruly legs and spine seemingly trying to pitch her to the floor.

But Alex couldn't gather the wits to answer, or do as Charissa told her, high, breathless gasping splitting the air, interrupted somewhat as Hesper started up again, half-obscured by Charissa's thighs in the way — not to mention Bella _somehow_ doubted Alex's mouth was entirely her own at the moment. Charissa's hand drifting over behind her back again, fingers shakily clenching halfway into a fist, as she drew out a long, ' _Well?'_

Lines were carved into Alex's skin, from the bottom of her ribs down across her stomach, about halfway down her thighs up toward her hips, drawn agonisingly slowly, thin and shallow, showing only the tiniest drops of blood in a couple places. And Alex's voice was ringing in her ears, high and breathless and keening, just under a scream, her hips bucking off the bed, her toes digging into the sheets, Charissa ruthlessly holding her in place, only responding with the slightest laugh—

Bella didn't know what to do with what she was learning today. She didn't think she'd ever—

Suddenly, Charissa back straightened, shoulders rising, head lifting. She contorted in place again, this time looking over her other shoulder. She couldn't see her, Bella knew that — her notice-me-not was still up. She might notice _something_ was there, but she couldn't be sure it wasn't her imagination, and she _certainly_ couldn't know it was Bella specifically.

Bella spun on her heel and bolted anyway.

She slammed the door behind her, nearly dropping her wand as she scrambled to recast the locking charm. Then she was walking off down the hallway, her ceaselessly shaking limbs turning her steps dangerously unsteady.

She only made it a few doors away before she gave up, turned to face the wall, planted both elbows about at head level, and pillowed her face in her forearms.

That was...

She didn't...

That...

She didn't think she'd ever been more jealous of anyone _in her life_.

It was a bit odd that that was the thing she was taking away from this, yes, she could admit that to herself. But she couldn't help the thought. It was there whether she willed it or not. She wanted it to be _her_ seeing Charissa naked on a regular basis, she wanted it to be _her_ who got to hear those indefinable noises she was probably making even now, she wanted it to be _her_ Charissa—

Bella frowned into her arms, surprised by the thought.

She wanted it to be her...Charissa made helpless. That she...hurt. That she made not-scream.

 _That_ was fucking weird. Apparently, not only was she (maybe) gay, but also a masochist? Huh.

Learn something new every day.

And she couldn't stop _bloody thinking about it!_ She couldn't get the _image_ out of her head, she couldn't get that _voice_ silenced, she couldn't stop _imagining_ it, and she was hot, and she was shivering, and she was basically fucking melting and it _wouldn't stop_.

She couldn't. She couldn't handle this. She didn't know how to make it go away. It was too much, too much, she knew she would be overwhelmed, she couldn't handle it.

Then, quite suddenly, she had an idea.

If she were in her proper mind, she would have instantly discarded it. It was a bit of a crazy idea, she knew it would come back to bite her in the arse later.

But she _wasn't_ in her proper mind right now, and she simply couldn't care.

She quite nearly flew down the hall, her steps so smooth and effortless she hardly noticed them happening. Which _was_ a bit odd, considering she'd been an inch from falling on her arse a second ago. Then she was floating up a flight of stairs, through another door, floating down this hall. Then, without a thought, she was throwing a familiar door on her floor open, and slamming it closed behind her. Locking and silencing charms quickly followed, so quickly and smoothly she wasn't certain she'd even drawn her wand.

To her credit, Astoria, reclined reading in her bed — good, she _was_ here — didn't seem at all surprised by Bella randomly barging into her room. In fact, she didn't even look at her, eyes steady on the novel in her hands. 'Good evening, Bella dear,' she said, voice perfectly easy and calm. 'Didn't your mother ever tell you it's rude to disturb a lady at her leisure?'

Bella frowned. 'My mother didn't tell me shite.'

Leaning back somewhat, Astoria blinked to herself, looking somewhat surprised. Evidently, remembering just who she was talking to. 'Ah. No, she wouldn't have, I suppose.' With a soft sigh, Astoria folded her book closed over her thumb, turning to raise an eyebrow at Bella. 'To what, then, do I owe the dubious pleasure of your company? And do make it quick, it is getting late.'

She rolled her eyes. 'Love you too, Tori.'

Astoria just smirked.

For a second, Bella considered being circumspect. Ease into it, nice like. But only for a second. 'I was thinking, you wanna fuck?'

Astoria blinked at her. Then she blinked again. 'Really.'

Bella barely held back the reflexive impulse to snap out a remark on Astoria's intelligence. 'Yes.'

She blinked again. Then her face broke into a bright smile. Bella groaned — she knew that smile. 'Oh, Bella, I am all aflutter!' Oh, come on, seriously... 'I hadn't thought you had it in you! I should have known better than to doubt the sweetness of your most tender grace, _oh_ , I feel I might _faint_ —' Ignoring Bella's glare, Astoria collapsed against the headboard, her wrist coming to her forehead. '—I think I should sit down...'

'You _are_ sitting down.'

And Astoria just kept fucking going, of course. 'Honestly, Bella, I am _thoroughly_ swept away!'

'Are you quite—'

Her voice abruptly returning to its usual low drawl — usual when they were alone, anyway — Astoria said, 'Yes, I think I am.' She dropped her hand, giving Bella a thin smile, one brow slightly raised. 'But honestly, Bella, just coming out with it like that. What's a girl to think?'

She snorted. 'That I'm feeling a bit randy and would you like you to help with that, I should hope.'

Astoria's lips twitched. 'And they say romance is dead.'

'I don't like you like that,' Bella said, shoulders lifting in an easy shrug.

For some unfathomable reason, Astoria looked amused. 'No, I suppose I wouldn't expect you to. You have been quite thoroughly obsessed with your favourite cousin since halfway through first year. Frankly, I'd be surprised if you were at all capable of seriously entertaining the thought of anyone else.'

Perhaps not so unfathomable of a reason, then. 'Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.' She would _not_ be explaining why she'd come today of all days. Astoria would have far too much fun with that. 'Stop playing around. Do you want to or not?'

'Honestly, bursting in and propositioning a lady, I _never_ —'

' _Tori.'_

'Fine, fine. Hmm.' Astoria pursed her lips, head tilting a few degrees away to stare up at the ceiling. Even as Bella was settling in to wait, with characteristically ill grace, for her to draw out coming to a decision for as long as possible just to make her squirm, Astoria said, 'Sure.'

Bella blinked. 'Huh?'

'I said sure.' Astoria reached for the stand next to her bed, pulled out a bookmark to replace her thumb, set her book aside. 'Yes. Fine. Okay. What are you still doing over there?'

Oh. Er. That had honestly gone easier than she would have expected. Suddenly feeling a bit nervous, she stepped over to the side of Astoria's bed, tipping down onto one knee before sliding in to sit next to her. 'Fair warning, I haven't ever done this before.'

This damn girl sometimes. Just sitting there smiling at her. So annoying. 'I haven't either, actually.'

'Well, I was just saying...' She trailed off as though to shrug, but really her heart jumping into her throat had just started interfering with her ability to speak. She worked on forcing her own throat to _behave_ for a second before talking. 'You know, in case I make an idiot of myself.'

'You've made your entirely unnecessary warning quite clear, Bella dear. Maybe just get on with it, then?'

'You're really annoying, you know that.'

'And you would be the expert on annoying, of course.'

Well. Astoria had her there. 'Okay. Er. I guess I should just kiss you, then, and we'll work our way up from there.'

Smiling at her, all brightly and sweetly, but her voice meticulous, overly serious, Astoria said, 'That sounds like a workable strategy.'

Bella glared. She would really, _really_ like Astoria to shut up now.

Luckily, she had just the thing.

* * *

Calōre vindicō — _Latin._ Calor _literally means "heat", but is used poetically for various things to do with intense emotion._ Vindicō _is the Latin source of English "vindicate", and can be used for the same meaning, but could also have meanings more along the lines of punishment and vengeance (the latter is also from the same root). This charm has appeared by name a couple times in TRW (incantation used in 19, important enough in 23 it's the title of the chapter), and in this fic Charissa instinctively used it way back in chapter 22._

Flamma impulsāns assurge — _As a reminder, this is basically a fire elemental bludgeoning charm._

Ēverte — _Command form of a verb meaning overturn, thrown down, destroy, expel._

[Prō mē elementa, meum nexum subīte, et in meā manū vigēte.] — _Latin, woo. Literally, "Elements before me, submit to my bending, and live (with)in my hand." Honestly can't remember if I've used this in this fic yet, but I know it was in chapter 11 of TRW._

* * *

 _So, that happened._

 _Chapter one day late, but I really thought it was going to be a lot more than that. I was having terrible difficulty writing, so far behind schedule. Then, yesterday, I suddenly just burst out with the third and fourth scenes. Over half the chapter in one day. No idea where that came from. My brain sometimes, honestly._

 _Coming up on the closest thing this fic has to a climax before too long. I won't make any promises about how many chapters are left exactly, since I'll inevitably get it wrong, but we're definitely approaching the final stretch. Just some last few things to set up, then lots of things abruptly going to hell, and finally a handful of chapters leading into the sequel (which involves everything else abruptly going to hell)._

 _With that in mind, I hope to have one last chapter for **Back Burner** and a poll up sometime this week._

 _Until next time,  
~Wings_


	38. Fifth Year — Assumptions

_September 24th, 1995_

* * *

'Maybe we won't sit there.'

Hermione stared at Luna, suddenly frozen a few steps in front of her. Well, suddenly so far as Luna did anything suddenly, that is, drifting to a halt gradually enough Hermione had more than enough time to stop without running into her, even with all the extra weight from the books she was carrying. 'Why not? Weren't we meeting Morag there?'

'Mm. I can just send her a _patrōnus_ , tell her the change of plans that way. It's not a problem.' Not for the first time, Hermione had to fight off a flare of envious exasperation. Oh, yes, she'd just send off a simple message over something trivial with a _bloody patrōnus_ , no problem! Jesus, Hermione had been trying for _years_ and she still couldn't get the stupid thing right...

By this point, she'd mostly defeated her own mortification over working on Arithmancy and Runes with a student a year under her. Luna's mother had been a spellcrafter and enchanter — herself taught by her own mother, a bloody _Ollivander_ , seriously — and had been teaching Luna basic runes and magic theory since she'd been _four_. It wasn't unexpected Luna would have age-inappropriate knowledge in the subjects. But, honestly, it still bothered her how absurdly easily actual casting often came to Luna. Hermione was always the first or _almost_ the first to get a spell down in class. (Charissa barely edged her out most of the time, but she was unfairly powerful, that probably shouldn't count.) For some reason, despite being a whole year younger than her, despite Hermione already standing above her _entire bloody class_ , Luna was _still_ better than her. Any time they looked up a spell on their own, something neither of them knew yet, Luna almost always picked it up first. Easily, without even any visible sign of effort.

It might be a bit petty, but it bothered her.

A couple times, with Luna and Charissa being how they were, she'd found herself wondering if she weren't just a mediocre witch. But, no. From the impression she'd gotten reading, and simply her own observations, she was, in fact, significantly better than average. It only felt like she wasn't that special sometimes because Luna was a couple tiny notches higher up the scale, along with people like Neville and Gwyneira and Ginny.

Charissa didn't count. She was just broken. Seriously, it was ludicrous. Given the inherent inefficiency of magic cast without any sort of focus, some of the wandless magic Hermione had seen her do _should_ have incinerated her own body from the inside out. Honestly, with some of the tricks she'd pulled over the last couple months, Hermione had no idea how Charissa was still alive.

But anyway, Luna was being weird. Something was wrong. It was sort of hard to tell for sure — Luna hardly ever showed emotion like a normal human being — but Hermione thought so. A slight tension in her shoulders and voice that wouldn't normally be there. Hardly noticeable at all by normal person standards, since this _was_ Luna, but that was the feeling she got. 'What's wrong?'

'Oh, it's nothing. Just might be better if we go somewhere else.' Yeah, definitely something off. The normal light emptiness of her voice was slightly thicker and heavier than it should be. Barely noticeable, but there.

'What are you talking about?' Hermione stepped around Luna — the narrow halls between bookshelves hardly left enough room, giving her a couple lungfuls of the spicy green scent that seemingly followed Luna everywhere. She only had to look at the familiar clearing ensconced in the forest of books for a heartbeat before she knew exactly why Luna had attempted a change of plans.

Charissa and Neville were sitting at a table. _The_ table.

Not that that was at all surprising, when she thought about it. It was their table, the one Hermione and Charissa and their friends had been using a few times a week since maybe halfway through first year. If anything, it was peculiar they'd been back at Hogwarts for a few weeks now and _hadn't_ run into each other here.

Of course, she and Charissa had barely spoken at all over these weeks. She'd seen her constantly, since they did spend all their time in the same building and did still share most of their classes, but nothing more than absolutely necessary. She was having a sneaking suspicion that had been by design. She doubted Charissa would care to go out of her way to avoid her, but it was obvious Luna had _intended_ to lead Hermione away rather than stay too close to Charissa for too long, and it was possible Charissa had people working her from the other side.

And she was just...

This whole situation was...

Ugh! Before Luna could say or do anything, Hermione was stomping up to the table, fingers tight about her bag over one shoulder and the books under the other. Before she could second-guess what she was doing, she walked up to the table, dropped her books onto the surface with a heavy thudding noise. 'This is stupid.'

Neville looked completely confused, even uncomfortable, his eyes flicking between Charissa and herself with a twitchy sense of being somewhere he didn't really want to be. Charissa, on the other hand, just stared back up at her, a single eyebrow ticking up slightly. 'What's stupid?'

'This whole...' Hermione shrugged, somehow resisting the urge to throw her hands up in the air. That seemed more overly dramatic than the situation really required. 'I don't know! Not being friends! It's stupid, and we should stop.'

Possibly for less than ideal reasons. Honestly? Not being Charissa's friend was just _boring_. Without Charissa around, she barely had any friends at all. As her mother had joked about once, she'd somehow gotten Luna and even Morag "in the divorce" — she'd rolled her eyes at the use of the phrase in her letter, but she didn't have a much better way to say it. Morag was the really surprising one, she'd always assumed she liked Charissa better. Well, she guessed Luna was a bit odd too, considering she and Charissa _were_ cousins, but that hadn't surprised her too much. Luna was one of the few among "their" friends who would actually go out of her way to see Hermione when Charissa wasn't around. So.

Oh, and Perry would track her down to talk occasionally. She didn't know how to feel about that, but the boy had always seemed a bit sentimental to her. Still, not the point.

Because, well, she really felt saying " _their" friends_ required the quotes. It was obvious in retrospect they'd mostly been Charissa's friends (and cousins), and had really only been tolerating Hermione's presence for her sake. Which she thought was something that _should_ bother her, but it really didn't too much. She just... She wasn't sure she got as much out of the whole having friends thing most people did. If she really needed it as much as normal people, she would probably care that they'd almost all...chosen Charissa's side, so to speak. Especially given exactly what had precipitated the break-up. But, it didn't really bother her.

Come to think of it, she hadn't even really had friends before Charissa. Of course it wouldn't bother her.

 _Mostly_. No, she wasn't hurt or anything by "their" friends more or less abandoning her. In some ways, it was actually an improvement — it was far less difficult to find a proper time and place to focus without people randomly annoying her. But, sometimes? She just got _bored_. While not _all_ of Charissa's friends had been interesting enough, plenty of them still were. Not having people around to discuss whatever came to mind with, it just...

Even the random stupid drama other people got into! She still thought it was completely idiotic, but she hadn't realised just how...interesting, and vicariously exciting the idiocy that happened in other people's lives could get.

And now she didn't have it, and it was _boring_.

She did still have Luna and Morag, yes. Luna was pretty good for the former, Morag the latter. Unfortunately, she didn't really like Morag that much — it seemed the _only_ thing Morag ever talked about was pointless social drama nonsense. A little bit of it now and then was fascinating, yes, but _all the time?_ Ugh. She'd rather Charissa had gotten her, honestly. And while Luna _was_ one of the more intelligent people Hermione had ever met, she... Well, Luna didn't quite think in straight lines. She could keep up with Hermione, which was a major plus, and she sometimes had absolutely fascinating insights that wouldn't occur to Hermione in a million years. But, as often as not, she seemingly spoke in riddles, the logic that led to those insights completely impenetrable.

Having Luna Lovegood as a best (only) friend was a bit frustrating sometimes. Though, she wasn't complaining that much. She was entertaining enough. And at the very least, Luna seemed just as uninterested in normal person silly nonsense as Charissa and Hermione herself were. It could be worse.

So, it wasn't necessarily just missing Charissa specifically. She could admit to herself that was definitely part of it. No matter how it might have annoyed and frustrated her at times, she felt she could use a strong dose of the very direct, blunt way Charissa had of speaking and thinking. She hadn't realised how much she'd come to rely on the zone of zero-tolerance for idiocy and double-speak that seemed to follow Charissa wherever she went. And... She didn't know. Sometimes she'd be sitting somewhere reading or writing or something, and it'd just feel wrong somehow. Like something was missing. And she wasn't so dishonest with herself not to know what that something was. But all the other interesting people she always had hovering around her definitely helped.

She wouldn't say she was lonely. She knew someone else in her place might be. But, before getting to know Charissa, she'd never had friends, and hadn't really felt like she needed them. Or, perhaps because she hadn't had them for so long from so young, she'd grown to not need them — it was hard to say for sure. So, it wasn't loneliness, exactly.

But she _was_ bored. Being around Charissa would be an easy way to fix the boredom. Not doing it was _stupid_.

Of course, while being friends with Charissa again would solve the boredom problem, that didn't mean it wouldn't be annoying sometimes. The faintly amused look Charissa was giving her right now — eyebrows cocked, lips twitching with a slight smirk — _that_ was annoying. Before Hermione could fantasise about hexing her for too long, Charissa spoke. 'So, I'm done waiting, then?'

A question was on Hermione's lips, asking what the hell Charissa was talking about, when the memory was suddenly washing over her.

' _I still want to, you know, be friends. But I, I'll need time. I can't— It hurts to look at you right now. So, if that's okay.'_

' _Yes, that's fine. How long do I wait?'_

' _I'll come to you when...when I'm ready.'_

' _All right. I'll wait.'_

Hermione felt like slapping herself. She was such a bloody idiot sometimes. She'd thought how they were very effectively avoiding each other had been, she didn't know, a mutual thing. That Charissa had her own reasons, just as she did. That Hermione's own reasons were mostly done with wasn't necessarily enough. Sure, she was... _mostly_ comfortable with the idea of talking to Charissa again. It was still a bit weird. And she doubted she'd ever really trust Charissa, or at least not any time soon, but she didn't necessarily have to. Being alone with her would also be problematic at this point, but with other people around, no big deal, it was fine.

She'd _assumed_ Charissa had her own whatever she was working out. For some absurd reason. One would think she'd learned by now to stop projecting feelings onto her inhumanly emotionless ex-girlfriend, but apparently not.

Honestly, she should just start thinking of Charissa like she were a magic robot or something. It'd probably be way less confusing.

Hermione didn't directly answer the question. Instead she just let out a sigh, coming around the corner of the table to slump into her habitual seat between Charissa and the window. An instant later, Luna was flopping down into the chair next to Neville, wearing a thin, characteristically vacant smile, as though nothing out of the ordinary were happening. 'Luna, Morag, and I were going to work on Runes. Grammar and vocabulary, mostly.'

By the lingering smirk on Charissa's face, Hermione knew she'd noticed the evasion, and was not-so-secretly amused by it. But she obviously decided to let it pass without comment. 'Neville and I were doing the same.'

'All right, then.'

Charissa's lips twitched slightly. 'All right, then.' She was teasing her in her head, Hermione just knew it.

She somehow resisted an exasperated pout at the thought, and ruthlessly forced the topic toward Sumero–Akkadian cuneiform. That, at least, she knew how to handle.

* * *

 _December 21st, 1995_

* * *

Hermione watched the unwelcome tag-along shadowing her mother and herself, doing her absolute best to not glare. And, probably, failing.

It was perfectly ordinary for large gatherings to occur on or around the Solstice. The Noble Houses were a small enough group they usually just had one stuffy high-society thing to themselves, but sometimes there would be a second one. The party (using the term loosely) for the important people had been yesterday, hosted by the Prewetts — or so she'd heard, she hadn't been invited. There would have been a fair number of people at the thing, yes. Hermione had been to a couple of those functions with Charissa, and there always hundreds of people around, walking around in fancy clothes and talking as though the world existed to validate them and support their way of life. Maybe Hermione had absorbed some of her grand-maman's attitude without noticing, because she was finding such people increasingly annoying these days.

Not to mention those silly fancy balls were often far more boring than she'd ever anticipated.

While the Noble Houses had their fancy things going on, the Common Houses had their own. On a typical year, a few dozen of them. As a part of her plan for House Cherwell — Hermione had never had it explained to her, but she'd seen enough now to feel certain there was one, and she could only assume this contributed somehow — Mum had decided they would have one of their own.

Mum had apparently been arranging it for months. Talking with some of the families making up their new House, asking them exactly what wizarding traditions for the Solstice holidays consisted of. (When Hermione had found out about this, she'd asked, feeling faintly offended, why Mum hadn't asked her. Apparently, Mum had wanted to know what _normal_ people did, and Hermione really only knew nobility, making her knowledge mostly useless.) Once she and a few others had put together a plan, they had spent weeks putting everything together. Deciding exactly who should be on the invite list, how those invites should be given, weaving the spells everything would require, including an update to their wards to ensure their nearest muggle neighbours wouldn't notice anything, acquiring and preparing sufficient food and drink for all the people who would be showing up. And since that apparently involved a lot of meat and confections and alcohol, not to mention a few more exotic items to accommodate their non-human guests, it hadn't exactly been cheap.

The whole thing was being held at what Mum had started semi-jokingly calling the homestead, a few acres of land, she wasn't sure exactly how many, somewhere in... Actually, she had no idea where she was right now exactly. She had the feeling it was in Ireland...somewhere? But even that could be wrong. It wasn't like precise location really mattered at all with transportation magic, so she'd never been told. But anyway. Mum and some of her new magic friends running the unnervingly fast-growing House Cherwell had started in on construction already, but it was nowhere near finished. There was a collection of houses and apartments, shapes moodily half-lit in the firelight, in full light of day striking Hermione as an odd combination of modern muggle practicality and magical quirkiness. But there weren't _that_ many of them, some even partially-completed skeletons, their ribs flickering eerily in the night. More a small village than a small town, which Hermione gathered was the ultimate intent.

And, of course, there were people around. An absolutely absurd number of very loud people — and she didn't only mean that literally. Her impression of wizarding culture she'd gotten at Hogwarts painted magical society as, well, basically Edwardian England. Somewhat more colourful, and with sometimes wildly different traditions and personal morals, but more or less. The clothes might be somewhat odd, but they were, for the most part, comparatively modest by muggle standards; sometimes in bright, eye-searing colours, but generally only one or two at a time. Everyone all reserved and staid and overly proper and self-possessed. While there was plenty of intrusive magical nonsense about, it had always seemed exactly that: intrusive. Like these wands and potions and enchanted whatever were superimposed on a culture that _could_ have existed without them, an extra bit added on once everything else had been settled.

She'd always seen Luna as an outlier, an island of concentrated eccentricity amidst an ocean of comparative mundanity. Now, however, she'd seen far more of magical Britain, and understood better. Luna _was_ still eccentric, of course, she was still an outlier, but not by _nearly_ as much of a margin as Hermione had once believed.

If she'd thought noble mages could be colourful sometimes, they had absolutely _nothing_ on people from Common Houses. It was, as Dad had once joked, as though someone had swallowed an entire rainbow of dyes, some of which glowed and changed colours, along with a couple dozen different kinds of glitter, and vomited all over them. In the most extreme cases, there would be people wearing robes in a clashing litany of colours, sparkling and shimmering with magical effects that sometimes just made Hermione nauseous, but some of them actually looked rather nice. Trousers a solid black, broken with softly glowing silver stars. A dress with indistinct shapes a deep green against a yellow-orange background, the shapes gently drifting back and forth, leaves of a tree against the sunset. One child running past almost seemed to be on fire, the swirling, glowing colours flickering and shifting like flames in slow motion. One woman Mum stopped and talked to for a few moments seemed to be wearing a long cloak made of black-tipped feathers a vibrant blue — thunderbird? — but a closer look showed it was simply cloth, stitched with unnaturally fine detail, some enchantment getting the tines to flutter in the wind in a perfect simulation of reality.

It wasn't just the clothes, either. Hermione had only been here a couple hours, and she already thought she'd seen more than she ever had before of unnatural hair colours, piercings all over the face and body, some of which she suspected would be impossible or merely cripplingly impractical without magic, tattoos of all shapes and sizes, some of which _moved_. Honestly, she'd barely talked at all the whole time. She just followed her mother around, watching the people around her, cataloguing all of the oddness she was seeing, continuously reevaluating her understanding of magical British culture.

Though, the celebration itself had plenty to draw her attention as well. It was, basically, a big outdoor...feast...picnic...thing. Under environmental wards holding off winter chill, spaced out all around were tables laden with platters and bowls of edible things of all kinds, cans and bottles and pitchers of various drinks. People would take whatever struck their fancy — sometimes simply grabbing finger food and walking off, sometimes using provided plates or bowls, though some seemingly couldn't be arsed to go that far out of their way, conjuring their own as they needed them. And they'd gather in little clumps of conversation, some standing as they ate and talked, others on randomly-conjured furniture, others just laid out on the grass. Most gravitated somewhere near the bonfires, creating dense packs surrounding, their long, flickering shadows dancing over the more widely spaced groups or wandering individuals between.

For there were bonfires, of course, that was apparently a Solstice thing. Seven of them, because seven was a magic thing. But, this being a gathering by the Common Houses of magical Britain, it apparently couldn't be that simple. _Something_ had been done to the logs occasionally thrown onto the fires. Hermione had no clue what, but it was certainly impressive. The wood might burn normally for a while, giving absolutely no sign of anything unusual, but then there would be a tactile _snap_ of magics released, and there was no telling what might happen then. The flames might leap higher into the air, contorting into forms and colours no natural fire would take. Sparks flung high above their heads in dense streams, only to gradually drift down again, not fading until they'd made a few distracting circuits around people's heads, gave the children about opportunity to chase after them with high squeals of delight. Sometimes dense wisps of glowing magic in all shades, rainbow fog forming a dome a few metres above the ground, filling everywhere the fires didn't reach with a faint, inconsistent light, each patch of spellglow enduring just long enough to be replaced by an eruption from the next bonfire along, never growing quite thick enough to obscure the curtain of stars above.

Occasionally, when their guests didn't have Hermione distracted, she would find herself wondering exactly how all that worked. Little pockets of catalysts embedded in the wood, only released when their shells were broken by the fire? It was fascinating, she'd never imagined such a thing.

Though the guests did have her attention rather a lot — she was technically the host, after all. Only technically, because her status as Mistress of the Common House of Cherwell was widely acknowledged to be a technicality. In every way except legally, it was her mother. But Emma Granger, being a muggle, could not lead a House under current British law. Hermione had gathered that hadn't _always_ been the case, but it was at the moment.

So, Mum had instead organised the House under Hermione, with herself as regent, without Hermione's consent or even informing her until after the fact, which was, apparently, perfectly legal. The law was ridiculous sometimes.

Not that Hermione thought she'd be able to do a better job of it. Her eyes trailed away from their tail, refocusing on the conversation Mum was having at the moment. She was talking with an older man, looked to be in his late sixties, early seventies — assuming muggle aging, she meant, so his actual age was probably at least a hundred twenty and probably greater — wearing comparatively plain robes glowing a soft blue-white. Though even he had a couple rings looping through the tops of his ears, his unnaturally white hair glittering as though he'd combed crushed quartz into it. 'I do not contest that _something_ , should be done, Madam Cherwell,' he said, his soft voice only slightly wavering with the weight of decades. 'I am simply unsure this is the correct way to go about it. The costs involved in such a venture would be significant.'

And her mother smiled at him, fluttering shadows thrown by the fires making the hints of a smirk more pronounced, seeming entirely unconcerned. 'So cautious, Master Burton! I hadn't expected it of you. Nothing I've heard of your reputation suggested you would be this miserly.'

The old man — apparently, head of another Common House — reacted to the half-insult with an exasperated expression. Not quite annoyed, not quite offended, as though he were merely somewhat impatient with Mum. 'I'm sorry, dear, was that supposed to be subtle? You'll have to try harder than that, I'm afraid. The benefit of experience and all.'

But Mum just smirked. Which Hermione had to admit was somewhat unnerving. Not that seeing Mum dressed up as a witch wasn't somewhat odd all by itself, it was — she'd even had her bangs charmed white as snow for the occasion, it was bloody weird. No, it was more the tone of the smirk itself. A hint of amusement, a trace of predatory glee, threaded through an overwhelming mountain of smooth self-assurance. The very clear sense that she knew she was going to win, Master Burton knew she was going to win, she knew Master Burton knew she knew, and the whole dance was quite exhilarating, his continued resistance of his inevitable defeat nothing more than adorable.

One of the more unnerving developments wrapped up in all this House Cherwell business was the insight into Mum's personality Hermione had gotten. When she'd learned about the houses of Hogwarts, she'd assumed that her mother, had she been able to go, would have been a Ravenclaw, or perhaps a Hufflepuff. After the last couple years, she hadn't any doubt Emma Granger was a Slytherin.

'The benefit of experience is exactly the point!' Mum said, her voice high and cheerful. 'It is a valuable thing, isn't it? But in the here and now, so many of the Common Houses are sending their children to their magical school of choice with hardly the proper experience to guide them at all! Hermione tells me even some of the students at _Hogwarts_ of all places are dreadfully undereducated in the most fundamental of things, needing months of intensive tutoring just to catch up to the bare minimum in something so simple as _reading_.'

Ah, yes, Hermione remembered this. Mum, along with a few of the more clever new Cherwells and some allies in other Common Houses, was trying to put together a school for younger children. Primary school, sort of, before they were old enough to go to a proper school of magic. (It turned out, not all of them admitted people at eleven like Hogwarts did, but it was usually somewhere between ten and thirteen.) From what Hermione had heard, magical Britain had no such thing, children getting their most basic education from their parents, or whatever tutors they could arrange. Some other schools had programs for younger children, but there was tuition to be paid. Handling all that wasn't difficult for the Noble Houses, or the Common Houses Hermione would call upper or middle class, but for the poorer mages it was a serious problem the majority of the government seemed to think wasn't worth addressing. But even among the wealthy, the system was precariously ad hoc — things sometimes fell through the cracks. Master Burton apparently didn't believe Mum's assertion that even some of the _noble_ children couldn't read and write sufficiently well by the time they got to Hogwarts, giving Hermione a doubtful look she returned with only a solemn nod.

Mum shot her a quick smile as Burton's doubt swiftly transfigured into something obviously uncomfortable. 'This is an issue that has been becoming gradually more and more problematic on the magical side of things for, oh, five or six centuries or so. Programs such as that at _an Ollscoil_ are a good start, but they don't go nearly far enough. Interestingly, the same thing has become an issue on the muggle side only within the last century or two, but we've solved it already. Public schooling, you see, funded through taxation, which all people in the country are not only allowed, but _required_ to attend.'

Burton gave a slow, cautious nod, as though acknowledging the theoretical usefulness of such a thing, but doubting it would ever come to be reality. 'You may have gotten our gracious countrymen at the Ministry to consent to the formation of your House, but you would have to be far more naïve than I believe you to be to think that has in any way endeared you to them. Should they ever agree to this, it would take decades of bickering and bartering. It is but a pretty dream, Madam Cherwell.'

And Mum just smiled at him, that bright, sharp, eager, slightly dangerous smile that so unnerved Hermione. 'Excuse me, Master Burton, but you seem to be operating under the mistaken assumption that we will _asking_. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe this should require the Ministry's involvement at all.'

When all was said and done, Mum had another House signed on to her plans to create a collectively-funded primary school for magical children. That this rather serious business was done with the distractingly colourful and chaotic Solstice celebration still going on in the background made it seem a hundred times more absurd. At some point, Hermione's life had apparently become one of those baffling avant-garde stage plays, and she hadn't even noticed.

In time, Burton left, looking somewhat annoyed, but grudgingly satisfied. Without moving, a bloody grin still on her face, Mum said, 'Liana?'

The call wasn't given in a raised voice. Mum had said it exactly at her normal speaking volume, flat and easy, with the clear expectation of a reply. Not in a cold, authoritarian sense, but just as though it were a natural reality of the universe, she couldn't reasonably expect anything else. And, in the blink of an eye, their shadow was no longer shadowing them from a distance, instead standing less than a metre behind Mum's left shoulder. Hermione's fingers twitched for her wand, despite knowing anything she could do would more than likely be less than useless. In her smooth, cool voice, with the barest traces of an accent too weak for Hermione to identify, 'Yes, milady?'

Mum blinked at the honorific, disoriented for an instant before just ignoring it. Which was a sort of surrender. Certain individuals among the new Cherwells seemed inclined to address Mum as though she were the Lady (Regent) of a Noble House, instead of the Mistress (Regent) of a Common — Hermione gathered this was infrequent but not unusual within Common Houses anyway — and Mum had originally argued, trying to get people to drop the ridiculous formalities. But mages could be stubborn. Apparently, Mum had given up. 'Mark down House Burton for fifteen slots, rotating, at cost plus twenty-five percent.'

The strange woman paused for a moment, her hard eyes slightly unfocused, committing the order to memory. 'It will be done, milady.'

And Mum just nodded and started walking off again. Perfectly casual, as though she hadn't just given completely mundane instructions, duties one might expect of a personal accountant or a secretary, to a _bloody vampire_.

Hermione must have spaced out momentarily, because Mum had gotten a few steps away. Liana was meeting her gaze, looking, if anything, slightly exasperated. There was a clear question in her eyes, but Hermione had absolutely no idea what to do about it. She still wasn't entirely sure how she should be dealing with vampires. Not that Liana really looked like a vampire — or, at least, what she had _expected_ vampires to look like. That had been one thing she had immediately noticed, when she had come home for the winter holiday to meet a few for the first time in her life.

An entire clan of them, in fact, calling themselves Caiazzi, presumably because they were originally from the similar-sounding town in Italy, or at least somewhere nearby. There weren't very many of them. She hadn't been told the exact number, and neither had she asked, but she assumed it had to be maybe twenty. Which did _sound_ like a lot, considering _they were vampires_ , but as far as such things went it really wasn't — there were vampire clans on the Continent that numbered in the hundreds. Though, she'd been told, there had been more Caiazzi once upon a time, much more. Sometime back in the fifteen hundreds, a member of their clan had gone on a murder spree throughout the area, and the clan had been almost entirely slaughtered by local mages in retaliation. Out of a clan that had numbered maybe two hundred, only five had managed to flee, eventually finding themselves in Ireland.

Not that the name Caiazzi really meant anything — the British Ministry didn't recognise vampire clans in any meaningful way. While they still called themselves Caiazzi out of habit if nothing else, they were now, legally, Cherwells.

Yeah. Hermione still had no bloody clue how to process the reality that, under magical law, she now had vampire cousins.

While most of the Caiazzi stuck to themselves, Hermione had run into Liliana and her brother (cousin?) Ulisse unnervingly frequently. Apparently, as a part of the deal Mum had struck with the Caiazzi — and if that wasn't a terrifying thought, her mother meeting with a clan of vampires while she was away at school — Mum had gotten Liana's services as a personal-assistant-slash-bodyguard, and Ulisse's as, and this was the real kicker, a _childminder_.

Yes, that's right. While Mum, Dad, and herself were here at this ridiculous party thing, her sister, barely yet a year and a half old, was home alone, at their house in the middle of the bloody muggle suburbs, with her _multi-centenarian vampire nanny_. The weirdest thing about that was that her parents didn't seem to see anything wrong with it.

At first, when she'd first met Ulisse, she'd wanted to protest. She'd _really_ wanted to protest, she'd had all the arguments about how powerful and dangerous and vicious vampires are primed in her head, just bursting at her tongue, and...she'd lost it. Gwenn had run into the room at that very moment, in that unsteady, tottering way she had, tugging at Ulisse's trousers for attention, blabbering away a mile a minute. And Ulisse had smiled at her all soft and warm, somehow picking through her half-incomprehensible toddlerish nonsense to respond adequately, and everyone else in the room had just stood there like there was nothing about this out of the ordinary, there was nothing odd going on here, and Hermione had never felt more out of place in her entire life.

It really said something when a couple strange vampires seemed more at home with her own family than she did. She wasn't entirely sure what that said, but it was definitely something.

They were nothing like how she'd expected vampires to be. They didn't look like it, they didn't act like it. Liana here had, of all things, _curly blonde_ hair. Not a very vibrant blonde, a flaxen yellow shot through with flakes of deeper brown, but a colour that wouldn't seem out of place on any random normal person. Her skin was so pale and so clear she looked rather like someone had poured white chocolate into a mould and let it set. Her eyes a soft blue-green, rather reminding Hermione of one of the bays near Syracuse at midday. She didn't look too unusual at first glance, could pass as human easily enough if one weren't looking too closely. A mage, of course — the shimmering sparkles on her trousers and tunic in muted blues and oranges were obviously some kind of magic. It was in the way she moved, mostly. Sometimes too still, hardly seeming to breathe, others too quick, movements unnaturally smooth and rapid, easy as water flowing. It was noticeable, that Liana wasn't human, was something _else_ , but it was very subtle.

Not to mention, when they were close enough, they felt...weird. She knew Mum and Dad wouldn't have realised this, since they didn't have magic, and Hermione was pretty sure that's what it was. But Liana and Ulisse just felt somehow _wrong_. It was hard to say exactly how. She just got the vague feeling, like a half-heard whisper in her ear, that the thing in front of her _should not be_ , that it was sick and unclean. It made the hairs at the back of her neck tingle whenever they got too close.

If anything, she would say it felt rather like when the Greek Champion in the Tournament had used blood magic to subdue her dragon. Just not even close to so overwhelming, instead so weak she barely noticed it was there.

'Can I help you, young mistress?'

Hermione jumped at the sound of Liana's too smooth voice, jarring her out of her wandering thoughts. She was starting to suspect some of the drinks she'd been sipping at over the evening were alcoholic, she was being silly. 'No, I don't suppose you would.' Liana could _help_ Hermione by going very far away and never coming back, but she figured there was little chance of that happening.

Liana's eyebrow ticked up a little more. But, Hermione noticed, her eyes weren't steady on her. They would flick to Mum every other second or so, watching her as she slowly made her way through the noisy crowd of celebrating mages. But even without having her full attention, it seemed the vampire could see enough. 'If you have a problem with me, I would hear it. It would make things simpler in future if I could know now.'

If she had a _problem?_ Her mother was being watched virtually every minute of every day by a _bloody vampire_ , and the bloody vampire herself wanted to know if Hermione had a _problem_ with that? 'Do you really have to ask?'

'I do not intend to harm your mother, Hermione.' Liana's head tilted a few degrees, a thin smile coming over her face. 'In fact, I distinctly recall swearing to prevent to the best of my abilities any harm coming to her. So, you could say I intend rather the opposite.'

'Why?'

A sense of confusion crossing her face so faintly it couldn't quite be considered an expression, Liana just hummed a short, 'Hmm?' Then, her eyes turned in Mum's direction, Liana started walking. Slowly, with no intent to leave Hermione behind, seemingly just to keep Mum close enough to observe properly.

Hermione furiously debated in her head for a couple seconds — follow the _bloody vampire_ and finish the conversation, or just leave? But, like, always, she quickly found her curiosity was not so easily ignored. Cursing under her breath, she helplessly trailed after the much older being. 'Why do you care what happens to my mum?'

Liana hummed again, her head tilted a bit to the side in thought. For some inexplicable reason, Hermione was forcefully reminded of Luna. 'I suppose I don't, to be frank. At least not in the way you imply. My elders tell me Mistress Cherwell must be protected, and so she shall be.'

That didn't answer the question at all, just passed the responsibility to answer it along. 'Okay, then. Why do your _elders_ care what happens to some random muggle?'

Still slowly following Mum like some kind of colour-inverse shadow, Liana turned to give Hermione a look. 'You say "muggle" as though it makes any difference to us.' Hermione must be having an expression on her face, because Liana continued, voice carrying a slight hint of exasperation. 'Mage, muggle, you're all humans. I don't see why it should be that significant. There are vampires who can work magic, and others who cannot, but they are all yet vampires.'

Well, yes, Hermione did know that. There were more vampire mages, proportionate to the rest of their kind, than there were human mages. Something like one in ten, she thought, but that meant there were still far more "muggle" vampires than "magical" ones. Which was sort of a silly thing to say, since vampires were inherently magical just by the fact of their existence, but only roughly ten percent of them could actively cast spells, in any case.

Liana, Hermione knew, was one of those ten percent. Though she preferred not to think about that — vampire mages were about a thousand times more deadly than normal ones. Take Charissa, but give her superhuman strength, durability, and agility, along with hundreds and sometimes _thousands_ of years of experience, and that was about the size of it.

Anyway, how non-human beings viewed the whole muggle–magical divide was fascinating, but entirely beside the point. 'You didn't answer the question.'

'No, I suppose I didn't.' Before Hermione could vent her growing frustration even a little bit, Liana kept talking. 'Why do people do anything?'

'That's not an answer either!'

Liana turned away from her vigil over Mum only long enough to give Hermione a crooked smirk, firelight glinting off too-white teeth behind her lips. 'But that was an answer, young mistress. Or, to be more precise, a hint at the answer. I was under the impression you were intelligent enough to reason out such things on your own.'

Hermione was _pretty sure_ her mother's vampire assistant had just called her stupid. She had absolutely no idea how to respond to that. Besides trying to set her on fire, anyway, but Hermione was positive she would fail, and that would just be awkward.

'It is really quite simple.' Hermione wasn't quite certain how to interpret the look Liana was giving her. Almost pitying, but not quite. As though Hermione were a foolish, short-sighted, arrogant child, and that was sad, but it wasn't truly her fault. A self-righteousness of youth, irritating and tragic, but one that she would inevitably grow beyond. Condescending, maybe? Whatever it was, it only made Hermione want to set her on fire more than she had a second ago. 'Rational people will, for the most part, do something for one of two reasons: either it contributes to their survival, or they simply wish to, out of some personal enjoyment or preference. My elders clearly wish to aide your mother, and they are more or less rational people, so their reasons must involve one or both.'

'I honestly don't see what you get out of it.' She really didn't. It was difficult for vampires to make their way in magical British society legitimately. Their situation was little different than that of most non-human beings — most were not treated well here. That was true, joining with House Cherwell could help them there, but they didn't really have to bother. They were _vampires_. They could simply take whatever they wanted. If not from mages, then from muggles, who were practically defenceless.

That look, when Liana glanced over at her again, was far more readable: disappointment. Perhaps with a shade of disbelief, as if she hadn't expected to be disappointed. 'You don't see what we have to gain from this alliance? I know you know how my family came to be here in Britain. And you still don't understand?'

Oh. Well. She supposed that was the risk inherent in simply taking whatever they wanted. They might be able to get away with it for a short period of time, but eventually they would make enough people angry enough they would do something about it. One vampire against an average mage wasn't even a contest. One vampire against an Auror wasn't either, but the other way around. A single Auror trio could probably take out an entire clan. Hell, Lily could probably do it herself, especially one as small as the Caiazzi. But even normal mages, it didn't take _that_ impractical of an advantage of numbers to overwhelm a group of vampires. Considering how many more mages than there were vampires, it wasn't at all difficult to gather the numbers necessary.

After all, the vampire population of Europe _had_ dropped precipitously in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries for a reason.

She thought she could maybe see the point. Sort of. There was more of an advantage for them in legitimacy than she'd originally assumed — not to mention the legal protections they got as a member to any House, so they couldn't just be exterminated at a whim. But it was somewhat odd. 'That's all it is? You think your chances of survival are better with us?'

They were stopped at the moment, Mum some distance ahead deep in conversation with someone new. So Liana turned to face her fully, her eyes hard and unnaturally steady on hers. 'I have never witnessed such a thing personally, you understand. My clan has lived here relatively unmolested for some centuries, and I was only brought into this world seventy-three years ago.' Hermione blinked — somehow, she'd been under the impression Liana was much, much older than that. 'But I have heard stories. Personal experiences related by my elders, of the slaughter they fled from, tales of the obliteration of other clans more recently, elsewhere. And they are not pleasant stories.

'They kill all of us, you know.' And Liana went on, the words themselves horrifying enough, the simple, casual way she said it making Hermione shiver all the harder. 'They kill us all, no matter that most of us have never done anything to deserve it. We keep to ourselves, do our best to live in peace, and still they kill us. Systematically, one by one. The men, the women, the children.' A slight hint of heat entering her voice, Liana said, 'And I don't think you understand what that means to us. Humans have children so easily, so many, often without even trying. But our children are so rare, so few. They kill them all, all the same, no matter their youth, no matter their innocence. If it is not human, it dies.'

That was one of the things Hermione had thought she knew about vampires that had been completely incorrect. Despite everything muggle popular culture and even some more sensationalist magical sources had to say on the matter, vampires were born, not made. Presumably, they were originally created by some sort of blood alchemy, but the ritual had been lost to the ages. Vampire reproduction, in essence, was exactly the same as human reproduction, differing only in that the vampire birth rate was significantly lower. Enough the Caiazzi didn't currently have any children at the moment — in fact, it was very possible Liana, apparently in her seventies, was the youngest in the clan.

'Not that the humans are safe either,' she said, a slightly twisted smile coming to her face. 'The humans of the clan are executed as well, every last one. The murderers come up with pretty but tragic words to justify it, that they are too far gone, too tainted by being in our presence so long. That they are putting them out of their misery. But still they are killed. Often as brutally as the rest of us, enduring tortures and violations innumerable along the way.'

That was one of the things about vampires that had been less surprising. Vampire clans tended to include a number of humans, often numbering more than the vampires themselves. While vampires didn't actually need to drink blood to survive in the short term — in fact, they ate food like normal people — they _did_ need a certain amount to maintain their immortality. Without it, a vampire would resume aging at roughly the same rate as a human, and eventually die. (Hence speculation they had originally been created by some lost blood alchemy.) Clans usually kept a sufficient population of humans to support their needs on site, as it were. The typical narrative among mages was that these humans were essentially prisoners, abducted and held against their will. Other more sympathetic sources said that was _sometimes_ the case, but more voluntary arrangements were actually more common. Hermione was inclined to believe the former, but she wasn't entirely certain — she'd never met any such people before, and since her sources weren't in agreement, she couldn't quite make a decision either way.

Liana's face had twisted into a sharp, humourless smile, something in her eyes dark and dangerous. 'It is rather funny, you distrusting us so persistently. There have been vampires who have done terrible things, I will not deny that. But most of us, the vast majority of us, have done nothing to you. We only wish to leave our lives in peace, like any other people. But you keep killing us, and killing us, and killing us. We are so greatly diminished, no one knows if we'll be able to replenish our numbers, or if we'll instead fade away entirely. Your kind have nearly driven mine extinct. And yet you still believe you are the nobler species, and we are the monsters. Honestly, I would laugh if it didn't hurt so much.'

And then Liana simply walked off, smooth and silent through the night, as though she really were simply Mum's shadow, leaving Hermione standing alone, temporarily incapable of speech.

She still wasn't certain vampires should count as people. They were obviously sapient, she would admit, but there were complications. It wasn't quite so simple. But, somehow, in everything she had read, in everything she had learned, somehow she'd never thought to consider whether the worldwide partial extermination campaign enacted against vampires for centuries now was, technically, genocide.

The thought made her extremely uncomfortable.

That's it, she was going to find Luna. The Lovegoods had been invited, and they were almost certainly here somewhere, but Hermione hadn't gone looking for them. She wasn't sure mixing Luna Lovegood and alcohol was a great idea. But a drunk Luna would certainly be distracting, and a distraction was exactly what she needed right now. Actually, come to think of it, Luna was pretty much always distracting. If Hermione hadn't known better, she would almost think it Luna's goal in life. So even if she weren't intoxicated, which Hermione honestly doubted, it would still be a good idea.

While on her search through the teeming masses chatting and laughing around the bonfires, it occurred to Hermione she wasn't entirely certain she _did_ know better.

* * *

 _May 25th, 1996_

* * *

For some reason, Hermione had found this far less annoying last time.

She'd been sitting in a corner of the common room when it happened, with a book. Well, not technically a corner, since Ravenclaw Tower was circular and thus had no corners, but somewhere out of the way, in any case. Not a book relevant to any of her rapidly approaching OWLs, even, just some random thing. A _novel_ , in fact, which was so out of character she'd even gotten a few confused looks from her housemates.

It was possible she'd been getting mildly obsessive about the exams, revising far more than was entirely reasonable, living for a couple weeks straight just on the edge of a panic attack. Luna had force-fed her a calming potion, then went on one of her silly, slightly unfocused-sounding rants about how revising seemed sort of pointless for Hermione, seeing as she remembered everything she had ever read or been told ever with inhumanly perfect accuracy. Her objection there could be something on the exams she _hadn't_ read or been told had been calmly countered by the assertion that Hermione read so much on her own that was extremely unlikely. Hermione might want to do a bit of practice for the things that would be on the practical, but there was absolutely no reason to waste her time going over things she already knew and would never forget. She would be fine, all she was accomplishing was hurting herself, and Luna would really rather she didn't.

Luna had left, after pressing a few more bottles of calming and sleeping potions into her hands, along with handwritten copies of the formulas she'd used, then flounced off, floating away across the library humming to herself. Hermione had sat blankly watching her back as she left, the plethora of thoughts and feelings running through her head mostly just boiling down to warm sort of bafflement.

That had been a few days ago now, and Hermione was _trying_ to be less ridiculous. Luna hadn't felt the need to drug her again, so it probably wasn't too bad. And here she was, sitting in the common room, calmly reading. A novel, even! Or, mostly calmly. She did have the niggling feeling, itching at the back of her eyes, that she was supposed to be doing something else, that she wasn't supposed to be here, bad enough it made it sort of hard to concentrate on what she was supposedly reading. But it wasn't that bad. It was manageable. That seemed sort of like progress.

Luna seemed to think so. She'd seen Hermione sitting here, given her one of those warm, dreamy smiles she always did, confirmed they were going to meet for Defence practice tomorrow. (Hermione was practising for OWLs with people in her year, but she simply couldn't do Defence with Charissa. At least Luna could actually be helpful.) Then, humming to herself, she'd floated away to the stairs up to the dorms, to go do...whatever it was Luna did when she was alone. Hermione tried not to think of it, honestly.

Which didn't necessarily mean she didn't. Just that she tried not to.

It was rather late, late enough the common room was mostly cleared out. A little pack of third-years chatting by the fire, a fifth- or seventh-year reading alone here or there, almost empty but not quite. Hermione was, in fact, considering going to bed rather soon herself. She would need a sleeping potion again to manage it, because she was simply too anxious for no good identifiable reason, but that was rather beside the point. Quickly flipping pages, she noted there were only four left until the end of the chapter. Right, she'd finish this then go.

She was just getting back into reading when she felt it. It was recognisable, but... Ephemeral fingers grasping at some part of her that she could feel but not feel, more thought than form, plucking at her mind but not quite finding purchase, sliding off with nothing gained. A rising feeling of excitement, of uncontainable energy, mild but undeniably present, tingles racing across her skin, a ringing in her ears and the faint scent of grass and dirt thick with life teasing her nose. She knew what that was without even having to see the source. Even if she'd only felt it a few times, even if it was usually under far greater control than that, she still knew what that was.

So she wasn't even slightly surprised when Charissa, wearing a somewhat rumpled-looking red and white dress, stumbled into the common room. She was slightly more surprised when her unsteady steps brought her bumping into a low table, losing her balance to spill over the surface and then onto the ground, high, slow giggles ringing in the air abruptly still as everyone else fell silent to stare at the spectacle.

Well. That would explain why Charissa had lost control of her legilimency and magic, at least. She was clearly intoxicated.

Though, really, that just raised more questions than it answered.

'Don't get me wrong.' Hermione couldn't see where she was on the floor from here, so she only saw Charissa's hand rising above the table, a single finger pointing vaguely toward the ceiling. Her voice was wavering, the words somewhat slurred, but not so badly Hermione couldn't understand. 'Ravenclaw, Ravenclaws are great, and all. All smart, and not too too annoying, and leave me alone when I wanna. But Hufflepuffs? Hufflepuffs are _ffuuuunnnn_...' And another torrent of nasally, somewhat breathless giggles.

Never mind. Hufflepuffs. That answered most of Hermione's questions.

Hermione hesitated for a long moment, staring in Charissa's general direction. She should _probably_ do something about that. The other older students had all gone back to their books, seemingly deciding the situation wasn't worth their attention, and the third-years by the fire were just staring with disbelieving fascination, as though they'd never imagined such a thing were possible. Though, whether that was because Charissa was a prefect or just because she was Charissa, Hermione wasn't sure. It wasn't every day the country's resident prodigy sorceress was laid out on the floor, high out of her mind on _something_ and giggling her head off. Someone should probably make sure Charissa got to bed, but she seemed to be the only even half-responsible person around at the moment. Which was somewhat irritating, considering Charissa was supposed to be the bloody prefect.

With a hard, helpless sigh, Hermione flipped her book closed, slipped it into her bag, and got up to her feet. She started walking toward where Charissa had to be, then suddenly froze the instant she came into sight. She was sprawled on her back, the skirt of her dress bunched higher up her thighs than was entirely decent, one strap drooping over the side of her shoulder. Framed by a tangled mess of thick black hair, Charissa's face was pulled into an uncharacteristically wide smile, her eyes bright and unerringly focused on hers. As though she'd known Hermione would be appearing there before she'd even shown up. 'Hey, look, it's Maïa. The most Hermione of Maïas.'

Hermione's thoughts hitched for a moment, not entirely sure how to respond to that. For one thing, Charissa had only ever called her Maïa when they were... Well, it wasn't a name she'd ever used too often, anyway. For another, she wasn't really sure what that was supposed to mean, or if it even meant anything at all. But she'd gotten a lot of practice dealing with that sort of thing with Luna, so she just ignored it. 'What are you doing, Charissa?'

Her smile split slightly wider. 'Not much of anything, really? That's a silly question. I'm being. Obviously. I'm just being more tinglier and fuzzier than usual. Did you realise you have a thingie?'

Hermione blinked. 'A thingie?'

'Yes. Thingie.' Charissa's lips pinched with concentration, eyes narrowing slightly, hand lifting to gesture randomly around her head. Hermione felt something happening, she wasn't sure what, thin, unidentifiable strands of magic slipping against her skin. 'A thingie. It's all shimmery, and bright, and warm. No idea what that is.'

...Okay, then. 'You really should get to bed, Charissa. Before you hurt yourself or, I don't know, fall asleep in the middle of the floor or something.'

'I suppose that would be bad.'

Hermione rolled her eyes. 'Yes. That would be bad.'

'But it's comfy down here.'

Got to be kidding... 'More comfy than your bed?'

'Well, maybe? I mean, I wouldn't ordinarily say the floor is comfy, but with the world going all swirly some comfiness must have swirled into it. Maybe the comfiness swirled out of my bed with all the swirliness, it might have gone somewhere else, and my bed will be uncomfy. Who knows?'

Hermione felt her eye twitch, entirely outside of her control. Her chest and throat felt too tight and too hot, and part of her, a secret part she normally didn't listen to, _really_ wanted to hex Charissa right now. By the way Charissa blinked up at her, seeming pleasantly surprised, and slightly amused in a sort of condescending way, she probably realised that. But she fought the feeling back, burying it again deep inside. 'Yeah, you're coming upstairs anyway.'

It took way more effort to get Charissa up on her feet than it reasonably should. Just telling her to get up hadn't worked. Trying to drag her up by a hand had just seen her flopping bonelessly over to her other side. So, gritting her teeth, Hermione hit her with a featherlight charm, and hauled her upright, slinging Charissa's arm over her own shoulders. While she started dragging the other girl to the stairs, she let out a long _hee_ noise. 'Your magic is nice.'

Er. That was weird enough Hermione staggered, distracted. 'Nice?'

'Mmhmm.' Charissa turned into Hermione's shoulder, face pressed into her shirt. 'It feels like how you smell. Essence of Hermione, all over me.' And she took a long, deep breath, by the sound of it through her nose. 'Hee hee...'

Hermione couldn't even begin to figure out how to respond to that. But she was pretty sure she felt herself blushing anyway.

Eventually, after much awkwardness and stumbling and trying to ignore how Charissa kept sniffing her and humming, she'd finally gotten the ridiculous girl up the stairs. Hermione dropped her bag in the middle of the hall, then dragged Charissa to the room she shared with Padma. Hermione was somewhat surprised, on looking around, to see Charissa's roommate wasn't here. Hmm. Whatever. In short moments she had Charissa across the room, just let her roughly fall onto the bed. Not that Charissa seemed to mind, she just giggled some more. After the slightest pause, Charissa said, 'You're right, Maïa. Bed is comfier.'

'Yes, well, it would be, wouldn't it?' She wanted out of this room. She'd gotten more comfortable with Charissa over the months, yes. Not so much as she had been before, it was still painfully awkward sometimes. In a way, that Charissa was seemingly unaffected by the same things that bothered Hermione only made it worse. That Charissa was very...odd right now, that wasn't helping. She kept being forcefully reminded, in alternation, of Charissa that night in France and Luna just in general. It made her uncomfortable. 'Right, well, you should probably take your shoes off and...' Hermione blinked a couple times, staring blankly at Charissa's feet. 'Charissa, where the hell are your shoes?'

'Hmm?' Charissa sat up a bit, pulled her bare feet up onto the edge of the bed — Hermione glanced away when she realised what was happening, far too uncomfortable with both the thought of randomly seeing up Charissa's dress and just how much Charissa didn't seem to care whether she could — leaning forward to stare at them. 'Huh. I forgot. Must be where I left them.'

Hermione sighed, lifting a hand to rub at her face. 'And where did you leave them?'

'Well, Hufflepuff, I think. I know I had them when I got there, and I took them off when my toes started feeling too squishy. Have you ever been in Hufflepuff? They have a nice common room, actually, it's all warm and dark and soft, it's nice.'

'No, I haven't.' She had seen pictures, but she wasn't sure she would like it. It seemed too...constricted? It gave the very clear feeling of being underground, she meant, by the look of it, too dark and tight and closed in. Not something she would like. 'What were you doing down there, anyway?'

'Hufflepuff was having a party. I mean, they have parties a lot, but this was an, a, an exam anxiety murder party.'

She blinked. 'Exam anxiety murder party?'

'Yes. OWLs and NEWTs are happening, people are anxious, so they beat their anxiety to death with brain-finicky things and lots of sex.'

A few years ago, she would have been shocked and horrified at the thought of a major educational institution randomly playing host to the students throwing narcotic-augmented orgies. Now, it didn't even phase her. She'd obviously never been to one, but she'd heard Hufflepuff just did that sometimes. When she'd asked about it, trying to not feel _too_ intensely scandalised, the only answer she'd gotten was, _They're Hufflepuffs_. For some inexplicable reason, this had seemed a perfectly sufficient explanation to everyone who wasn't herself, so she'd just dropped it, and tried to pretend such things weren't happening down in the basement on a regular basis.

Hermione froze, turned to stare at Charissa. It was just sinking in that...that Charissa had collapsed into the common room after curfew and out of her mind on whatever "brain-finicky" substances she'd taken because she'd...just come back from a _bloody orgy_. That... She'd just... How...

With all the force of will she could possibly muster, Hermione forced that thought aside somewhere she'd never have to consider it again. 'Well, do you still have your wand holsters on, then?'

Charissa snorted. 'Course I do. I can't let someone touch me without my wands here. Don't be silly.'

Hermione remembered, over a year ago now, Charissa very deliberately divesting herself of her wands, the memory playing out before her eyes for just a second before she ruthlessly shoved it aside. 'You do take those off to sleep, right?'

'Mmmm, sometimes. Depends.'

Oh, well, then she wouldn't bother getting Charissa to do it. It clearly didn't make a difference. 'You should probably change for bed.' Hermione wondered if she should do anything else. Probably call an elf to make sure there would be water here, should Charissa need it. Charissa could probably use a potion or two on waking up, but Hermione wasn't even sure which ones, so she obviously didn't have any ready. Just had to take care of that herself, then. Right.

Charissa let out another long hum, seemingly considering that. Then, with an absent flourish of wandless magic that tugged at Hermione's hair and pinched at her skin, Charissa's dress expanded by a few sizes. Well, she guessed that was one way to do it. With a bit of flopping about, clearly far less coordinated than usual, Charisa shifted both straps to the sides of her shoulders, clenched a handful of fabric over her hips in each fist, and sharply tugged—

Sudden heat climbing up her neck and cheeks, Hermione jerked around on a heel, turning to face the other way so quickly she had to scramble to keep her balance. 'Charissa!'

'Mm?'

'Where are your clothes?!'

Sounding absently baffled, Charissa said, 'You just said to take them off.'

Hermione paused to count to five, trying to ignore how her fingers were twitching in want of her wand. 'Charissa, you do realise you weren't wearing anything under your dress, right?'

There was a short silence. Without even seeing it happen, Hermione was positive Charissa was blinking down at her own naked body with intoxicated confusion. 'Huh. So I wasn't. Weird. Coulda sworn I was...'

'Did...' Hermione sighed, fighting the impulse to rub at the sides of her forehead with both hands. After a second, she changed her mind, and just went ahead and did it. 'Did you leave your knickers down in Hufflepuff?'

'Think so. Prolly a slip too. No big, Sophie will get it to me later.'

There were so many things wrong with this. But, well, there was no use sitting here pointing it out. Charissa clearly didn't seem to think this was nearly as absurd as it was. So Hermione would just... Oh, wait, shite. 'Er, Charissa?'

'Mmhmm?'

'There were, er, boys there, right?'

'Yeah.' Charissa sounded slightly disgruntled.

'Did you, er...'

Sounding even more disgruntled, she grumbled, 'Well, yeah. It would be rude to not, don'cha think?'

It would be _rude_ to— No, never mind, she wasn't going to bother thinking about that. 'You did remember the contraceptive charm, right?'

'Oh! Oh, no, I think I forgot that. I should probably, er...'

Hermione let out a long sigh. She was sure Charissa _could_ do it, on a normal day. After all, she knew Charissa had been shagging the Gaunts and Neville, and whoever else Hermione didn't care to know about, she'd had practice. But casting any complex charms with her on...whatever she'd taken, yeah, that probably wasn't a great idea. Botched magic and the human reproductive system don't exactly mix. Cursing to herself in her head, Hermione turned back around, drew her wand. Trying to ignore how Charissa was still lying out across her bed completely starkers, apparently feeling no need to cover herself, Hermione cast the charm. Then again faced away as swiftly as she could manage.

Before she'd even made it all the way around, Charissa was giggling again. High and thin and almost ecstatic, not so loud Hermione couldn't hear the faint noise of Charissa's legs shifting against her sheets. Hermione was starting to wonder if she should just walk out. After a couple moments, Charissa got her lungs back under control, voice high and bright and uncharacteristically cheerful. 'Your magic feels like you smell, is nice.'

Considering exactly where her magic was while it was _feeling nice_ , Hermione thought it was perfectly understandable that her face was only growing hotter. 'Well, er. Okay. I'll just be...going. Then.'

'Oh, will you, now?'

Hermione felt herself stiffen, shards of ice crawling up her spine. She knew that voice. It was low, and soft, and smooth, spoken with just slightly too much air, a bare sound of breath at the edges. Hermione knew that voice, she'd heard it more times than she could count. (Not really, that was just a thing people said.)

That was Charissa's we're-about-to-have-sex voice.

Well. Fuck.

She didn't have time to say anything, she barely had time to twitch. She felt it coming over her, a rush of hot sparks on the air, wrapping about her and yanking her back off her feet, a somewhat embarrassing _yip_ bursting past her lips. After the barest second, Charissa's wandless summoning charm, which was just bloody _cheating_ , brought the backs of her legs thumping against the side of the bed, and Hermione was tipping backwards, then rolling, the room swirling in dizzying confusion around her.

Somehow, she wasn't entirely sure how it happened, Hermione had ended up on her back. Charissa was on top of her, straddling her hips, fingers clenched about her wrists, holding Hermione's hands against the bed just to either side of her head. Face centimetres from hers, close enough the usual crooked, eager smirk wasn't completely visible, her eyes looking a bit glassy, slightly unfocused, but the hard green fire still all too familiar. And part of her was furious, and part of her was terrified, and part of her, a pathetic secret part of her she always tried to ignore, just wanted to—

Hermione tipped her head to the side, squeezed her eyes shut painfully hard, as though that would somehow make all this stop happening. She tried to pull away, squirming against the sheets, but it didn't work, she could barely move an inch. Then she felt it, not just Charissa's physical weight holding her in place, but a heavy, oppressive blanket of power, hard and unyielding, cold steel against her skin. _Fuck_. 'Charissa, stop this, let me go.'

She jerked at the warm touch of Charissa's breath, far too close against her ear. 'Is that _really_ what you want?' And Charissa was moving, her face sliding in against her neck, hips shifting against her, and Hermione could only grind her teeth, clench her fists, and wish she could be _anywhere_ but here.

For a long moment, she couldn't say anything to that, just cursing to herself inside of her head. Because she wasn't sure she could say no and sound entirely confident in herself. Some part of her, impulses and feelings she always did her very best to pretend didn't exist, some part of her missed Charissa desperately. It was a quiet voice, buried beneath the unending cacophony that was her own mind, but it was there. Some cold, sad, lonely part of her had never stopped wanting Charissa, didn't care about all the _very good reasons_ she'd had for ending it, just wanted Charissa to touch her, just wanted to feel her, just wanted Charissa to hold her, she didn't even care.

She pretended she didn't. It was humiliating. She couldn't even exactly explain why, but she hated that little voice in her head. It made her feel pathetic and stupid and...less, somehow. But she couldn't make it go away, nine months now and it was still there.

She took long moments to silence that traitorous part of her before wrenching her mouth open. 'No. I want you to stop, Charissa.'

And, by some miracle, she did. She didn't get off of her — in fact, Charissa didn't seem to be moving at all, as though she'd been abruptly turned to stone, cold and hard. A few seconds passed, Charissa not even seeming to breathe, that intangible something brushing against the edges of her mind, like fingers gentle through her hair. Then, finally, Charissa sighed, and collapsed. She didn't get off of Hermione, no, but the eager tension had gone out of her, fingers loosened about her wrists, laying on top of her placid and boneless.

A bit awkward, her _completely naked ex-girlfriend_ using her as a pillow, but she still felt the danger had passed.

Charissa let out another sigh, then spoke, her voice coming out a high mumble, slightly muffled by Hermione's neck. (Which was a more than a bit uncomfortable, but Charissa was clearly unstable at the moment, and Hermione didn't feel like risking setting her off again.) 'No. Don't want me. That's okay.'

She blinked; had that weirdness a moment ago been Charissa reading her mind? But... 'My occlumency is up. Isn't it?'

'Mmhmm. It's fine. Can get through it if I really want, but that's against the Rules.'

For some inexplicable reason, Hermione had the feeling "Rules" should be capitalised. And she was curious about that, but this wasn't the time to ask. 'Then how could you tell?'

'It's a...a thing. Like...' Charissa hummed against Hermione's neck, shifting against her somewhat, probably finding a more comfortable arrangement of limbs. 'Potions! Yes, potions. You know, you have your cauldron, and your cauldron is filled with potion, and you can maybe tell what it is looking at it. But if you can't look directly in it, you can't see. But you _can_ see the fumes coming off of it. Not always, but sometimes you can kinda guess what the potion is by that. Not reliably, maybe not exactly, but sorta the idea. It's like that, but with feelings.'

That might make sense. Okay. Fine. 'Oh. Well. Thanks for not raping me, I guess.' Even as she was saying it, Hermione thought it might be the most...ridiculous and awful thing she had ever said. It didn't help that she was being completely serious.

Charissa hummed again, shrugging a little. 'Don't want me. I can make you want me.' At what Charissa was saying, just how flatly and plainly she was saying it, Hermione felt ice crawling up her spine again. 'Did I tell you about that? I copied the thing carīdwð do. Makes my magic all sexy, most people are shite at fighting it.' Charissa paused, just for a second. Then she said, voice bright and cheerful again. 'Did I really just scare you just saying true things? That's silly. You're adorable.'

Hermione had no fucking clue how to respond to that.

'I won't, though,' Charissa said, continuing her terrifying psychopathic monologue as though it weren't the slightest bit unnerving. 'That would be bad. Against the Rules.'

Yes. Raping people is bad. It took more effort than it really should to hold back the oddest urge to giggle. 'Rules. You keep saying that.' Sure. Yes. Keep the crazy ex-girlfriend talking. Hopefully she would pass out or something so Hermione could just leave.

'See, is this thing my mum did. She knew I was me. I mean... I mean, she knew I wasn't normal, that I wouldn't be normal-person-like, I would be me-like. So she gave me Rules to fake normal people things. Sev calls it "morality for psychopaths", with that little drawl he gets. He thinks he's funny, Sev. I didn't know about this until, like, summer. Mum didn't tell me, thought I would hate her for stupid normal person reasons that are silly and dumb. The Rules are useful, don't get it.'

Ah. Reading between the lines a bit, Lily must have trained Charissa from a very early age to... Well, Hermione wanted to say "not be evil", but that wasn't quite right. Which Lily had apparently felt guilty about, assuming that was the _stupid normal person_ reason. And Hermione had to agree with Charissa on that, that was _silly and dumb_. Charissa could be a bit much even with these Rules of hers. She didn't want to even think about what she'd be like without them.

'Not that they're useful all the time. They're like... I think they're not perfect. Mum is Mum, right, she's pretty great, but even she can't think of everything. Things happen, and all. I think she didn't think of everything. Sometimes, I think the Rules can be broken sometimes. Sometimes they beg to be broken. A big flashing no, it sounds like it's bad, they're cringing or screaming or fighting or whatever, but you can tell they really want to be broken.'

Er... Hermione had the unsettling feeling what Charissa meant by "they" had abruptly changed somewhere in the middle. Not that this whole thing wasn't unsettling...

'Don't worry, you.' Charissa shifted, obviously moving somehow, and after a few seconds, Hermione felt Charissa...gently patting her on the head. Erm. 'I'll not do bad things to you even if the Rules break and won't go back together again. You're safe.'

This was very confusing. Hermione wasn't sure if she should be feeling more awkward, patronised, nervous, or terrified. So the tingling mass in her head seemed to settle on just a vague sense of surreal confusion. 'Er. Why?'

'Cause you're special.'

That answered absolutely everything ever. 'And how exactly am I special?'

'Cause you're mine.'

Hermione blinked. She glanced down toward the chaotic mess of black tangles on her chest, frowning to herself. 'Erm...' She had the distinct impression telling _Charissa_ of all people that she did not appreciate that sentiment, to put it lightly, was a very bad idea.

And Charissa just giggled. The same hand that had been patting Hermione on the head a moment ago found its way to her stomach, poking her in the side. Hermione reflexively twitched away, clenching her teeth about her bottom lip to stop herself from letting out any embarrassing noises. Luckily, Charissa only made a couple pokes, stopping almost immediately. 'You're having scared feelings again. I'm not going to hurt you, silly. Never hurt you. Well, I mean, you know what I mean, never on purpose. It doesn't count when I don't mean to. Or if you want me to hurt you, that doesn't count either.'

Despite herself, despite the situation, Hermione was rather distracted by that last aside. Why would she ever _want_ Charissa to hurt her? Well, knowing what the Gaunts were like sometimes, she could guess she probably meant...

She'd never much wanted to know anything about, er, Charissa's relationships with other people, but now she _really_ didn't want to know.

'What does that even mean, though?'

'Hmm?'

'That I'm yours, apparently. What does that mean?'

Charissa shrugged a little. 'I dunno. It's this thing. It isn't quite right, but I can't think how else to say it. I don't care, you know. About most people. I'm not... They don't seem, real, to me? Like, they're just, things. Empty machines of chemistry and magic, just puttering along, substance with no essence.'

Okay, back to terrifying psychopath monologue, she guessed. 'But, er, you're a legilimens.'

'Well, yes. But that's the magic part of the chemistry and magic. It just seems so fake all the time. They feel, just, too... Too much, like a painting that's a little too colourful, too fake. And people's thoughts are stupid. You're less stupid, so I don't think you notice, but other people's thoughts, other people's feelings, are _stupid_. I can't imagine how any of it makes sense to them. That's the thing I _know_ is right, that I'm just weird and stupid thoughts are normal thoughts, I _know_ is a true thing, but that's something I know like I heard it somewhere, unconfirmed, it doesn't _feel_ like a true thing. I can't imagine it makes sense, so it doesn't. And they don't realise it doesn't, so... They're like, you know, fake. Like the characters in a book, too thin to be alive. Like a construct, programmed to think and feel like that by a real person. They're always like that, all the time. People don't feel real.

'Some people are different. There are real people. Not very many, but some. And some of these people, I...' Charissa trailed off, her voice flickering into nothing. She had been getting gradually more slurred, even as her reasoning seemed to grow, paradoxically, less absurd. She was probably getting sleepy. Which was fine, then Hermione could make a break for it far easier. 'They're real people. And they're _my_ people. Because, they feel real feelings, they think real thoughts. I want their real feelings to be good feelings, and their real thoughts to be pleasant thoughts, because they're real, and they're mine. No other way to say it. Just is.

'You were the first one, you know.' Charissa shifted again, burrowing further into her, suffocating a yawn. 'I remember, it was... I dunno. When summer was happening, and you were going home, where you'd be far away, and without any wards. And that was bad. That was unacceptable. You're mine, and you had to be where I could see you, and you had to be safe. Because you're mine.

'Should feel special. I don't keep very many people. I mostly don't care. There's... You, and Perry. Mum, sorta, it's more I'm her person than she mine, but close. Neville is getting there, and the twins prolly will later. And Bella, in an apprentice-y way. Perry is kinda getting like that now too, I guess. And that's it. There aren't very many. And you were the first.' Charissa's arms tightened around her a bit, face pushing firmer against her neck, drawing in a long breath through her nose. 'And you're comfy.

'So you don't have to be afraid of me. You're _mine_ , Maïa. I'll always take care of you.'

Hermione was having a very strange moment. She thought, quite possibly for the first time in her entire life, she actually understood Charissa Potter.

Not very well, she would admit. It was a theoretical understanding only, like... Well, to use Charissa's own metaphor, like a character in a book, or a construct someone had designed. Charissa's worldview, the way she felt about people, made absolutely no sense to Hermione at all. But, even so, she thought she had the basic idea.

Charissa had, essentially, split the entire world into three categories: fake people, real people, and _her_ people. Fake people didn't matter at all, and in most ways were beneath her notice. Real people were _not_ beneath her notice, were complex and interesting enough to hold her attention for at least a little bit, but in the end she didn't care about them either, they were ultimately inconsequential. _Her_ people were a select group of real people who she did care about, who she wanted to be safe and happy, for no other reason than they were her people. Perhaps a possessive angle Charissa hadn't verbalised, maybe wasn't even entirely aware of — they were her people because they belonged to her for some reason or another, the choice of words might not be meaningless — but it didn't really make that much of a difference. Didn't change the essence of the three categories.

It had never really sunk in. Charissa didn't think of relationships the same way Hermione did, she simply didn't. To her, it wasn't about friendship, or about love, or about anything like that. It was about the _social dance_ , as Charissa had called it on several occasions, what was expected of her in various situations, even if she hadn't the feelings to motivate the steps. She played the dutiful heir to a Noble House, she humoured friends, she wore the trappings of passion, but they were meaningless to her. Like a dress she may put on one day, and switch out tomorrow for the next. All the rules and protocols and customs surrounding human relationships were only that to her, for the core feeling they'd been designed to wrap around simply didn't exist.

To Charissa, all it was about was what was hers, and what was not. The former were all she truly cared about, and the latter could all burn. Everything else was window-dressing, an empty performance of a normal human being.

For all that she'd known Charissa for years now, for all that had happened, she'd never truly understood. Charissa was _not_ a normal person. She didn't feel like them, she didn't think like them. And she never would. With her absurd magical abilities, only growing more egregious by the day, she hardly even counted as human anymore.

Hermione should probably stop thinking of her as though she were.

Charissa wasn't the anachronistic picture of a wealthy noblewoman Hermione had originally conceptualised her as. She wasn't the cold, lonely princess in the castle. No, she was the dragon lurking outside, guarding the entrance with unlimited patience, silently watching any who could possibly threaten the residents with empty, apathetic eyes. Only held back from burning the countryside for the knights whose ire she would raise.

Distantly, Hermione wondered what would happen should Charissa grow so powerful the threat posed by those knights (Aurors, in the metaphor) no longer intimidated her.

But...

It was strange. Completely alien and more than slightly disturbing. But...it was almost weirdly reassuring, in a way. The few lingering doubts she'd had about their relationship, how what had happened and why, melted away. She wouldn't say she'd forgiven Charissa entirely, she wouldn't say she wasn't still a little afraid of her, but...it was enough. She thought she understood. Enough to be getting on with, in any case.

Though, now she was having a thought. A slightly worrying thought. She licked her lips, glancing down at the tangled mass of Charissa's hair again, the question lingering for long seconds unsaid. 'Charissa?'

'Mm?' Charissa sounded even more tired than before, seemingly just moments from sleep.

'I'm yours, right.'

'Mmhmm.'

'Does that mean...' Hermione paused to lick her lips again, swallowing. Then she spoke, trying to keep any trace of nervousness off her voice. 'I mean, you wouldn't flip out of I started seeing someone.'

'No. Course not. Mm...' Charissa tensed slightly, an odd sense of focus coming over the air. 'Depends, I mean. Who is it?'

'I, er, haven't asked her yet...'

Her voice suddenly far more awake, flat and hard, Charissa demanded, 'Who?'

'I don't really think—'

And then the world around her shattered into a million pieces as Charissa barrelled through all the meticulously-laid defences about her mind as though they weren't even there.

It only lasted for a moment, a dizzying moment filled with her own thoughts and memories swirling about her in a chaotic storm, her head filled with light and power and agony, and then Charissa was retreating, disappearing as though she'd never been, reality snapping back into place in her absence. Hermione was left with an awful, blinding headache, the pain somehow draining all the energy out of her, her breath high and thin. She could barely even move, she could barely even think, just waiting to stop shivering...

'Oh, Luna.' And Charissa sighed, casually snuggling into her again, as though she hadn't just violently assaulted her mind. 'Luna's fine.'

Normally, Hermione knew, she would be absolutely furious. She'd be glaring, she'd be shouting, she'd be firing off hexes despite how useless she knew that would be. But she just couldn't. Whether it was from the lateness of the hour, or aftereffects of the legilimency, she didn't know. She was just...tired. It was impossible to summon up the energy to be properly enraged. 'You didn't have to do that,' she said, her own voice now sounding slurred and unfocused.

'Weren't telling me. Had to know.'

'Why do you have to know? Not your business.'

'It is, though. They might hurt you. I... I already hurt you. Like that. No one else will. I can make people do what I want, I won't let them.'

Hermione was far too exhausted to process that.

'But Luna is fine. Luna's nice. Weird, though, didn't you used to hate her?'

Hermione shrugged. That was second year. Things have happened since then. 'Luna's nice.' And pretty. And smart. And funny, even if Hermione suspected maybe a good three-quarters of the jokes went right over her head. That was just Luna being Luna, she thought.

'Mm.'

Hermione never did make it to her own room that night, drifting off into a deep sleep before she could remember to get up. It wasn't a bad night's rest either, still and comfortable, the late spring chill warded off by the warmth of Charissa laid out atop her. In the days to come, she would come to realise that that had happened made exactly zero difference. It made absolutely no difference to Charissa if they randomly slept together here or there (literally speaking). Hermione was still hers, and the little details about their friendship didn't change that the slightest bit.

But that didn't stop explaining to Padma the next morning why exactly she was in bed with Charissa — silently watching the whole conversation, lying there out in the open still distractingly nude — from being unspeakably mortifying.

* * *

 _Phew. So that all happened._

 _Chapter delayed somewhat by a combination of insomnia striking again and sudden employment. I actually moved a scene to the next chapter just to have this out today, and it was getting sort of long anyway. Employment will continue to be a thing, so there will certainly be a bit of irregularity in my schedule in future. I'll keep up as much as I can, but that's as much as I can promise._

 _Poll on my profile. Also, I'm semi-seriously considering putting up a forum here. I sometimes answer the same question several times, and I was earlier this evening reminded the forums exist. I may or may not do that, and may or may not use it for anything other than public review replies instead of just putting it in my updates like a silly person, we'll see. If anyone has particularly strong opinions yay or nay, review away._

 _Until next time,  
~Wings_


	39. Summer, 1996

_Yes, I still exist. Hi._

* * *

 _October 22nd, 1995_

* * *

Perry gave Charissa a skeptical look. 'And how am I supposed to do that?'

'With proper concentration, you should be able to simply feel it.' Charissa arched an eyebrow at him, only slightly, her expression perfectly blank, not a scrap of doubt or compassion there to grip on to. 'You are already uncommonly skilled with wandless magic for your age, far better than anyone I've ever met. Excluding Mother, of course.'

Perry couldn't help a slight smile at that. Mum _was_ Mum.

'However, your ability to sense the presence of magic is not similarly advanced. Which is not unusual, granted,' Charissa said, lifting a single shoulder in an idle shrug. 'I could barely sense magic at all at your age. Hermione, who is still to this day more sensitive and discerning than I am, only truly started to develop her skill with it over the summer after first year. You are not _behind_ , exactly. But I know you can do better, so you will do better.'

That was a compliment, he knew. Or, at least, as close as Charissa got to complimentary when she wasn't consciously choosing to give one, which she only did rarely anyway. He still wasn't entirely sure how to feel about the crazy high confidence Charissa had in him. He really didn't think he was all that good. Sure, nobody else in his year could cast anything wandlessly, but Charissa could do _way_ more than he could, and their mother had been better even at his age. He was good, yes, but not that good. Not good enough to meet the expectations Charissa had for him.

He didn't like the thought. He still wasn't sure about this whole...left hand...stuff, they were doing. He meant, he wasn't opposed to it, everything that came with it, if he was doing it for Charissa. But..he still wasn't convinced he _could_ , was the thing. He wasn't sure he was good enough. He would try, but he couldn't help feeling Charissa would only be disappointed.

He didn't like the thought.

So, trying to hold back any external signs of his wariness — Charissa could see in his head anyway, it didn't make any difference, but he was supposed to be practising that too — he let his eyes fall closed. Not that there was anything to see, Charissa had brought him to some empty, dreary room somewhere in the dungeons. An instant later all sound cut off, Charissa's deafening jinx taking effect, his eyelids turning impossibly heavy, another jinx to stop him from peeking. And he waited, blinded and deafened, left only to the soft scratching of his clothes against his skin, the tickling of his hair, the scents of the room in his nose.

It wasn't pleasant, this room. Smelled all mouldy and mildewy, a damp space let alone far too long, plus just the faintest hint of rot. He was starting to wish Charissa had picked a different room.

Then, out of nowhere, a stinging jinx struck Perry in the shoulder.

He flinched at the pain, hand automatically jumping up before he forced it down again. Gritting his teeth slightly, he pushed his back straight again, and did his best to force his mind blank. Like he was about to do magic, but not quite reaching for the power waiting within. Instead stretching outward, grasping, looking for something, _anything_. Charissa was going to do some flashy magic, he knew, something that bled off a lot of energy, something he _should_ be able to feel. If he didn't give any sign he felt it soon enough, then she would sting him, so he had to pay atten—

This time he was struck in the stomach. Perry doubled over for a second, arms wrapping around his suddenly aching abdomen, hot needles digging into his flesh. But he forced the pain off as quickly as he could. Stood straight again.

A jinx came again.

But he didn't feel anything.

Another.

Whatever magic Charissa was doing, he didn't feel it, there was nothing.

Another.

And another and another and another. He was starting to lose count.

There had to be something he could do! This was something everyone could learn eventually, just a part of being a mage, maybe he was doing something wrong...

Another.

He just _couldn't feel it!_

* * *

 _November 18th, 1995_

* * *

He felt it!

Not that he could say what exactly it felt like. It was... The warmth of a fire, the sharp tingling of lightning, pressing against him, but not against his skin, exactly. Against something else, something hidden and deep inside, something he wasn't even aware of most of the time. It was hard to put words to. But he _did_ feel it.

Before Charissa could jinx him, for what could well have been the millionth time, Perry raised his hand. Only for a couple seconds before dropping it again.

A short moment passed, alone in silent darkness.

Then he felt it, again. Not quite the same, a slight difference in the intensity, in the...shape, he guessed, in the frequency of the tingling. But he _did_ feel it, so he raised his hand again.

And again.

A slightly longer pause, and he was hit with a stinging jinx again, the sudden interruption in his building sense of victory making him jump. But he shoved the feeling aside, and focused.

A moment later, he raised his hand again.

And again.

And again and again and again.

He wasn't hexed again the whole lesson.

By the end, his grin was pulling at his lips so tightly it was almost painful. The satisfied warmth in Charissa's eyes when the jinx on his own were removed, so he could finally see her, only spread it wider.

* * *

 _February 4th, 1996_

* * *

When it happened, Perry was so shocked he entirely forgot to point in the direction of the source, earning him yet another stinging jinx in the hip.

The pain was enough to shock him back into focus. Before Charissa could move and cast another spell, testing his ability to sense the direction magics were coming from, Perry sharply waved both hands in the air. He felt slightly silly making a spectacle of himself like that, but he didn't know how else to get her attention. There was a pause of a couple seconds, then he felt a tightly-focused dispel wash over him — that was one of the very few charms he could identify by feel now. Only the deafening charm was broken, the hex holding his eyes closed remaining, but that was enough. 'What is it?' said Charissa, voice low and hard, but with a very slight sense of curiosity on the edges. Perry had hardly ever needed to call a break before, after all.

Or possibly because she couldn't see it in his head, he guessed. Which is a bit odd she couldn't. He _was_ practising his occlumency, but he wasn't nearly good enough to keep her out, and he wasn't even trying at present. Mind magic could be weird sometimes, who knew. 'I saw it.' Not a very clear explanation, true, but it was all he'd been able to come up with. This spell, he'd _seen_ it, a pale blue and orange light, shivering against the darkness. He'd felt it the same time, but he'd _also_...

Charissa was silent, for a long, tense moment. Through some desperate force of will, Perry managed not to fidget. 'What do you mean, you _saw_ it?'

'I don't know. Not with my eyes, exactly.' Obviously, he couldn't have seen it with his eyes, since they were closed. 'It was a lot like feeling magic normally, just...with colours.' And shapes, and...and textures, he guessed was the way to say it. It was hard to describe it, had been so brief, and then it'd been over, and he hadn't been sure what he was looking at. It hadn't lasted long enough to get a good impression.

Another silence. 'I was standing behind you.'

'Yes, I know.' He could tell from how it felt, and he supposed the light he'd been looking at had been behind him. Not that he was sure how he knew that, how he could look at things behind him in the first place, just the feeling he got. 'What does that mean?'

A much longer pause this time. Perry wished he could actually look at her, see what was going on on her face. Not that Charissa was that expressive anyway, but it would at least be _something_. Well, actually, he could probably dispel the thing wandlessly himself, but he wasn't supposed to, he would wait. Finally, after what felt like far too long, practically vibrating with tension the whole time, Charissa _finally_ spoke. 'I'm not certain, but I think it means you inherited Mum's magesight.'

An almost painfully intense thrill running from head to toe, Perry's chest suddenly filling with a giddy heat, he was entirely unable to stop himself from gasping. Which he thought was only appropriate! Magesight was...well, it was _rare_. There were charms to imitate the effects, yes, but only a handful of mages in the entire bloody country could do it with the natural ease Mum could. Sort of the difference between someone using the legilimency charm, like how Dumbledore and Mum could, and a natural legilimens, like Charissa and Severus were. The imitation charm was always clumsier, the natural ability always easier, more dexterous, discerning.

On a good day, Mum could tell you everything in the script for a suite of wards just by looking at the wardline for a few moments, while even a wardmaster might take a couple hours. (The wardmaster would have it in far greater detail, but not the point.) Mum was never surprised by the enchantments on anything, she always knew if something she was eating or drinking had a potion in it and, for the most part, exactly which potion it was. She could tell apart at a glance curses that looked exactly the same because, to her, they _didn't_.

While her magesight wasn't _the_ reason why Mum was as good a witch as she was, it certainly helped quite a lot. It was a very rare gift, enough Mum was actually somewhat known for it. Charissa hadn't inherited it. At least, possibly not — she was only a few months older than Mum had been when she'd noticed it, it could still present itself. Linden, it was too early to tell.

But, seemingly, Perry _had_. It'd showed up extremely early, too.

Assuming the single instance of it so far could be reproduced. And even then, it meant another thing Perry would have to spend months and months learning to use reliably.

But he felt he was grinning anyway.

* * *

 _May 23rd, 1996_

* * *

Perry was keeping one ear on the words coming out of Charissa's mouth, but most of his attention was actually on his food. He wouldn't put it past Charissa to have injected a potion into one of the random peas somehow.

It turned out, learning to properly use magesight was actually really, really easy. But perhaps that shouldn't be a surprise — innate talents weren't like learned magic, they were almost always intuitive to the people who had them. He'd sent a letter winging off to Mum the very night he'd first seen anything, and she'd come by later that week, teaching him a couple tricks. Not switching it on and off, exactly — as far as he could tell, it couldn't be switched off — but teaching him to...

Well, it was sort of like focusing his eyes. It was like everything was in layers. Normally, he would see them all mixed together, the physical object wreathed by a complicated, writhing mass of intermingled magics. It was a bit nauseating sometimes, when there was too much going on. But with a bit of concentration, he could get one layer to sort of come a bit to the front; the other ones would still be there, but less prominent, blurrier and dimmer, letting him focus on the one he wanted. Most of the time, he walked around focusing on the physical one. It could be a bit disorienting walking around Hogwarts otherwise.

He'd always thought Hogwarts looked rather boring, for the most part. There were tapestries and paintings and shite, yes, and the occasional gilding here and there, but for the most part the walls were just plain grey stone. Well, they didn't look plain at all anymore. To his eyes, the walls and floors and ceilings, bloody _everything_ , were coated in layer after layer after layer of spells, honey yellow and royal purple and leafy green and electric blue-white, running across their surfaces like water, or snapping and crackling like lightning. A dizzying mess of colour and shape and movement, it gave him a headache if he tried to walk around without consciously ignoring most of it.

Sort of like how Charissa had to ignore everyone's minds around her most of the time, come to think of it. Similar idea.

It was very pretty, though. Not just the castle itself, but the _wards!_ He'd gone out at night, more than once, just sitting on the ramparts out in the open — he couldn't see proper through the windows, due to spells on the glass. The wards stretched over their heads, a glittering, glimmering dome of rainbow light. Shifting and slippery, like the sheen on the surface of an oily puddle, but a thousand times thicker and more colourful, a million times brighter. He'd sat for hours, just staring at it, awestruck by the beautiful lights, stark against the black of night, that only he could see. Like the castle was putting on a show just for him.

One time, he'd let Charissa deeper into his head than usual, so she could see it through his eyes, but it hadn't affected her nearly as much as it did him. She'd just acknowledged it was rather pretty, sounding a bit bored, and moved on. But he hadn't expected much different, honestly, Charissa was just like that.

But that wasn't the only reason he was glad he'd inherited Mum's magesight, how pretty it was. It made this figuring out what magic things had on them much, much easier. They'd barely started on that before, trying to remember each spell just by what it felt like was so tedious, it was impossible to keep them apart. He was far better at remembering what was what by sight. Every spell had its own combination of colour, texture, they all shivered or swirled in place differently. He still had to learn every spell individually, but it only took a couple times looking at them to remember. Similar spells often had traits in common too, so sometimes he could guess what something might do, broadly speaking, just by looking at it. Never specific details, but he could usually tell if an unfamiliar enchantment or potion or charm would be harmful. That was all that really mattered, when it came down to it.

This was a thing they'd started doing a couple weeks ago. Charissa was busy revising for her exams coming up, but every once in a while, she'd find time to have lunch or tea or something with him. She would have prepared the food and drink, and _something_ in it would be charmed, or have some potion in it. Perry was supposed to figure out what, try to guess at what the effects of it would be, and respond accordingly. The best reaction, she'd said, might not be an outward one — if someone were trying to harm him, it might be to his advantage to play along until they slipped in some situations, or simply play dumb in others. If he could get away with not taking the potion, he meant, or even taking it and counteracting it later, if he were certain what it was, that it was curable. There was advantage in letting his enemies think their attempt to poison him had worked, however briefly, and potentially even more in letting them think it'd failed simply because he didn't like sprouts or something.

Not that she'd needed to tell him any of that. Charissa may be clever, but she wasn't the Slytherin in the room.

And he was starting to get very nervous. There was magic on the food, certainly. Faint traces of what he knew to be a preserving charm on the peas, subtle warming charms on everything except the pudding, which had a cooling charm instead, slightly less intense than that on the ice water. Fairly typical of magically-prepared food, he knew. The tea, however, was absent any obvious magic at all — it was considered a bit crass, uncultured, to use any magic in the preparation of tea, he'd been specifically instructed to consider any signs suspicious in itself, whether the spells were harmful or not.

The problem was, as far as he could see, there _was_ no problem. There was nothing, in his food and drink and, he confirmed at a glance, nothing unusual in Charissa's either. It was unnerving. There'd _never_ been nothing. It was...

If it were anyone else, if it were his mother or one of his aunts or cousins or whatever, he'd think there were no alternative motives for this meeting. That it was exactly what it seemed like — chatting over lunch, for its own sake.

But this was _Charissa_.

Despite what several people had said, despite what Mum was obviously secretly fretting over, Perry held no illusions about his sister. He knew she wasn't a nice person. In fact, he thought he'd figured it out a long time before most other people had, though he wasn't certain exactly what it was, how to put words to it. There was something most people had, some idle energy, some warmth at the core of them, that in Charissa was entirely absent, instead empty, and intense, and cold. He felt he'd always known exactly what she was. He knew she was unfeeling, and cruel, and sometimes simply inhuman in how she felt about things, sometimes in how she simply _didn't_ feel about things.

The thing a lot of people didn't seem to understand, he _knew_ all that, and he loved her anyway. Though, he guessed it didn't hurt that she'd always been nice to him. He was different, he knew that. Even though she couldn't give a damn about most people, even though it wasn't at all natural to her, it took a conscious effort for her to be gentle, even though he was pretty sure she didn't feel the things that _made_ people be nice to people they cared about, she was still nice to him. She'd always taken care of him, for as long as he could remember. Even though it wouldn't have come naturally to her, even though she might have thought it a burden, something she _had_ to do instead of something she _wanted_ to, or just _did_. She _chose_ to, against her own inclinations.

It might not be entirely rational, but he loved her all the more for it.

So, this couldn't be just because Charissa had wanted to spend time with him — Charissa never _just_ wanted to spend time with him. There had to be something, this had to be some test. He just couldn't see what it was. And it was really starting to bother him.

More than even before, he really didn't like the thought of disappointing her.

He was a shade from panicking when, with a yellow-white burst of house-elf magic, a pot of tea appeared in the middle of their little table. Charissa poured herself another cup, apparently having drained hers entirely, and Perry watched the liquid as it poured. Physically, dark but with that shimmery transparentness tea should, but also wreathed with the soft light of magic, one that was definitely a warming charm, which shouldn't be there in the first place, but the other...

For long seconds, Perry could just stare at it. He didn't know what that was. It was definitely _something_. Hostile magics, whether bound in charm or enchantment or potion, were usually rather easy to identify. Not in the colour, exactly, but in the texture, jagged edges and biting hooks, looking as though they would tear his skin to shreds could he touch them, with the slightest pressure. This didn't look like that at all. It was a soft, silverish glow, with slight traces of yellow and pink flickering at the edges, deep in the center, like staring down a well to the depths beneath, a seething core of black and white and purple. The way it shifted, still but fidgeting with contained purpose, he knew it was a potion, some potion that would have an instantaneous effect of some kind. He couldn't tell what. It looked...

Well, it sort of looked like veritaserum. Not exactly the same — the colour was all wrong, the interlinked, eye-drawing whorls in its surface with the same sense of suggestion, but not directed in quite the same way. Something mind-altering, then? But he couldn't guess how—

It was about then he realised Charissa had finished pouring her cup, and was raising it to her lips. Without thinking, Perry jumped to his feet and slapped at her wrist, sending the cup flying through the air to shatter against the wall.

And Charissa stared at him, angled slightly upward to meet his eyes, her brow cocked in a sort of amused surprise.

Perry was a hundred percent certain he was blushing.

After a few seconds of staring, the air silent but for the slow drip of spilled tea tipping from the table down to the floor, Charissa reached for her napkin. With calm, meticulous care, she cleaned the tea off herself, not looking from Perry's eyes the whole time. 'Well,' she said at last, only once she'd folded the napkin and set it aside. 'That's one way to handle that, I suppose.'

The heat on his face only intensifying, Perry collapsed back into his chair. He picked at the hem of his shirt, frowning down at his plate of food, too embarrassed to look up. 'Well, I just... I was distracted, trying to figure out what it was. Didn't notice you were about to drink it before it was almost too late.'

'It worked. And we're alone in any case. A dramatic reaction, yes, but not an entirely inappropriate one.'

Well, that was a slight relief, he guessed. He still felt far too embarrassed to actually meet her eyes yet. 'Erm, what was that, anyway?'

'Amortentia.'

He blinked. 'You...' Nope, he had absolutely no idea how to respond to that

'Yes, amortentia. It was keyed to myself, of course. I have no idea what it would have done should I have taken it, but that is rather beside the point. I decided it was important for you to know what love potions looked like.'

He supposed he could rather understand the point. The idea of love potions in general had always made him feel rather...uncomfortable. The idea of someone slipping _Charissa_ a love potion was worse, though he couldn't say exactly what it felt like. Just hot and...sticky, he guessed. Just bad. 'Do they all look similar, then?'

Charissa shrugged. 'You know, I hadn't actually asked Mum that. I'd planned on brewing a few different ones, letting you draw whatever patterns you can find on your own. But you'll find amortentia is by far the most frequently used anyway. No love potion is particularly harder to brew than any other, and amortentia is the most...insidious, I suppose is a word for it.'

To be honest, Perry didn't know that much about love potions. He didn't know much about potions in general, really. He'd heard people say before that amortentia was among the most powerful draughts in the class, but he couldn't say what made it so. So he just asked.

Her head cocking slightly, her voice taking that light tone it always did when he gave her a hypothetical, she asked, 'If you'd acted too slowly, and I'd taken a potion you didn't know what it was, what would you have done?'

'Give you a bezoar.' He did have two of the things, always had since he'd been six or so — Grandmother had insisted they all carry one on them at all times, just in case, but he'd always thought it was better to have a second on hand. He knew Charissa would certainly have one somewhere as well. So, that should be the immediately obvious—

But, her lips twisting into a crooked smirk, Charissa shook her head. 'That won't do a bloody thing. What does a bezoar _do_ , Perry? How does it work?'

'Er...' That was an interesting question. He'd never thought to wonder about that before. 'Neutralises poisons and...stuff?'

Charissa's smirk now looked more than slightly amused. 'It does neutralise poisons, _and stuff_ , yes. It will most substances, with very few special exceptions, that your body and magic _treat as harmful._ Amortentia is one of the many potions that your mind, body, and magic will incorporate, as though a natural part of your own. A bezoar would do absolutely nothing.

'So what, then, would you do?'

'Er... If you started acting all...weird...try to, I don't know, convince you something's wrong?'

'This is why amortentia is the worst of the lot.' Charissa was still speaking all calm, casual, as though what she was talking about weren't, at some level, unspeakable horrifying. 'It convinces the victim that what they are feeling is _correct_. That their feelings are more real than anything else, more important than anything else. They will sacrifice whatever necessary, dismiss all other relationships or obligations or what have you, to pursue the person the potion was keyed to whatever way they feel appropriate. They cannot be reasoned out of it. Trying to reason someone under the influence of amortentia away from the person they have been enslaved by will only make them distrust you, and oppose you all the harder.

'If someone successfully slips me amortentia, the only way to stop me from running off to whoever managed it and submitting myself to whatever slavery they have planned for me is to _stop me_. Do you think you can stop me, Perry?'

Perry thought he might have been filled with ice. A cold, hard, unyielding horror, overwhelming everything else, until he could barely think or move.

No. No, he didn't think he could stop her. He didn't think he would ever stand a fucking chance, not in a million years.

'Not that I think you would ever have to worry about that.' Charissa sat back in her chair, took a slow sip from her glass of water. 'I wasn't lucky enough to get Mum's magesight, but I can detect if there's a potion in something without too much trouble. The only reason I wasn't at all suspicious about that tea was because I knew it was there.'

'Then... Then why did you bother doing this?' He would rather wish she hadn't. The thought of someone messing with Charissa's head, badly enough he would have to... She would kill him, he hadn't a chance, and the thought was...

He would fail. He would fail when she actually needed him and she would be doomed to a fate worse than death and there was nothing he'd be able to...

And Charissa was just smiling at him. With a hint of warmth, just slightly, the way she got sometimes when she knew he was freaking out a bit, over something to do with her, but she hadn't a bloody clue what to do about it. 'I'm not the only person you spend any time around. You have friends that could just as easily find themselves targets as myself.'

The thought of someone slipping Charissa something this bad had just made him horrified, in a way that made him still, silent. Like the thought was too terrible, too awful to fully grasp, its shadow too heavy to function under.

The thought of the same being done to Hermione, or Violet, or Xeni...

At least, when the dishes and the cups and the glasses and teapot all shattered under the sudden force of his rage, too big and too hot and too _much_ for him to hold inside, flinging food and water all over the both of them, shards of glass and ceramic slicing at their arms and faces, Charissa hadn't seemed even slightly annoyed. She'd just silently cleaned them up and healed their scratches with a few flicks of her wand, smiling at him with a hard sort of pride in her eyes.

For all the embarrassment prickling at his skin, for all the rage still clawing at his chest, he couldn't help feeling rather pleased.

* * *

 _July 19th, 1996_

* * *

Hermione stepped out of the floo, the nauseating swirl of green flames gently fading away as though they had never been. She glanced around the familiar sitting room, but not looking at anything too closely — even though she'd long been aware Luna didn't _really_ believe all those ridiculous-looking creatures existed she still felt a bit annoyed seeing the models hanging from the ceiling, and the geometry of this house always made her head hurt if she looked too closely. She only looked long enough to confirm Luna wasn't here.

She tromped up the the spindly metal staircase at the center, passing through her father's room and up to Luna's. Before climbing high enough to actually see in, she tapped her wand against the frame, a silently-cast charm making the metal ring. When there was no response, she tipped up onto her toes to peek into the room. Luna's room was a dizzying clash of purples and blues, the occasional newspaper article or random photo pinned against the wall, the ceiling entirely obscured by drawings Luna had made over the years — various magical creatures both real and fictional, plenty of her parents and her aunt, a few friends from school here and there — all gently waving and flittering with amateur animation charms. Also, an absolutely absurd number of plushies and pillows. The first time Hermione had been here, she hadn't been able to tell what colour the carpet was, or even if it _were_ carpet, the entire surface covered with the things. This time the plushies were piled in a mountain Hermione was sure was nearly as tall as she was, the bed almost hidden by a mound of pillows. A desk was similarly so thickly layered with books and parchments and mismatched drawing supplies the lines of the thing were rather hard to make out.

But, she confirmed, no Luna.

Hermione went down the stairs again, passing the sitting room into the disorientingly-curved kitchen. Nope, no Luna. She went down another floor to the basement — this place actually _wasn't_ circular, a small collection of normal blocky rooms. A respectable little library, an office space complete with a compact magical printing press used by Xenophilius. She'd been told there were a couple rooms down here that had once been Luna's mother's, in which she'd housed her various experiments and things, but Hermione had never been in there. Apparently, neither had Luna or her father, the rooms practically sealed off with Pandora's death.

The stairs came down into the office, where Xeno was bent over a desk working at something, muttering to himself with dark energy. But Hermione didn't see Luna. She could be in the library? But if she were to go through the office, Xeno would probably notice her. Hermione had had a couple brief conversations with Luna's father and, well, she'd resolved to try to avoid the experience in future as much as possible. He was rather...

Hermione jumped at the sudden explosion, her hand snapping to the railing to stop herself from toppling over. For an absurd second, she'd thought Xeno had blown something up somehow, but no, he'd hardly even moved, still mumbling and writing. And the explosion was rather muffled, coming from outside, far enough away the stairs had vibrated with it only slightly. Hermione froze, holding her breath, trying to filter out Xeno's scratching and half-mad rambling. She thought she heard something, a slight crackle of electricity, the clash of curse striking shield.

And she felt like an idiot.

Hermione slunk back up the stairs — with more care than was really necessary, since Xeno had barely reacted to the sound of a _bloody explosion_ — then walked through the kitchen to the door outside. And found Luna almost immediately.

Past the garden hugged around the little tower were two figures, darting back and forth across the grass in an energetic dance. One figure was tall, with the mature form and confident grace of an adult woman, the other shorter, slimmer and flightier with the restless energy of adolescence. The taller had short blonde hair a brilliant yellow, held about her head like strands of sunlight, the other trailed by a longer flicking curtain of a significantly paler shade, almost silvery, like moonlight made liquid made solid. The first wore practical duelling clothes, trousers and tunic in blue and black, close against her skin but loose enough not to hinder movement overmuch, the other a lacy white dress, imbedded beads glittering with internal light, fluttering above her knees as she slid and spun.

The second figure was, obviously, Luna. While Hermione had never met her before, she was rather certain the first was Castalia Lovegood. She knew hardly anything about the woman. Xeno's sister, younger by a few years, had either been in Lily's year at Hogwarts, or just a year before or after. They'd been friends in Hogwarts, she knew — Charissa's mother and Luna's aunt and Neville's mother had all been in the Hogwarts duelling team together. Castalia's record for the longest winning streak in the ICW student duelling division, the same as those tournaments Charissa was in these days, apparently still stood. (Though she thought, if Charissa continued not losing the next couple years, she might actually be able to beat it, since she'd started slightly younger.)

She also knew Castalia was a lesbian. She and Neville's mother had apparently been a thing back in their school days — and, she'd heard, still sort of were. Over the years, partially inspired by her success in the duelling circuit, she'd gotten a litany of marriage offers, but she'd never even casually entertained a single one. In fact, Castalia was rather well-known both for having a rather prodigious collection of lovers, not only in Britain but in various countries around the world, and for showing absolutely no inclination to settle down with any of them. Two women couldn't _marry_ , of course, not in Britain, but it was still expected people like Castalia (and Hermione, she was nearly certain by now) would end up in a...more stable situation, if that made sense.

While she had never met her, Hermione had started thinking of Castalia as sort of an older, somewhat nicer version of Charissa. If Charissa hadn't been obligated to marry because of stupid Noble House political shite, that is. She had no idea if the impression was anywhere near correct, just a thought she'd had.

It was obvious this little fight of theirs was very one-sided, but that wasn't at all surprising — Castalia was a professional duellist, after all, and Luna only fifteen. Luna was still doing far better than Hermione could possibly manage. Her aunt was sending spell after spell at her. Tight little beams of hexes and curses, arcs of cutting and severing charms overpowered enough they visibly glowed, an occasional storm of lightning bolts, javelins of ice and gusts filled with luminescent rains. And not just charm work, but transfiguration as well, the ground reaching up with spiked tendrils to claw at Luna's legs, darts and spears and curving blades of glittering metal or stone winging through the air, packs of animals in grotesque, unnatural sizes and shapes charging and screaming and scrabbling.

Not that Luna was doing _that_ great. She seemed to be surviving, and barely that. Hexes and curses dodged or blocked, an occasional one deflected with that same deft little flick Charissa could do but Hermione never had managed to aim right, elemental magics either countered or fled from, conjured materials incinerated, blasted apart, banished to tumble randomly across the ground, or simply dispelled. Only very rarely would she have any time at all to fire back, and even then she just had a short instant to let loose with an insanely dense burst of hexes, spellglows so close together Hermione couldn't even make out the spaces in between them, red-green-purple-yellow-blue in an unbroken stream.

Which, somehow, Castalia was able to deflect with that little flicky thing. _Somehow_. Wouldn't she have to deflect each spell in Luna's little rivers of hexes and curses individually? Hermione had no idea how she was doing that, and with the spellglows spanging off her wand hand in all directions she couldn't get a clear enough look to even try to pick it apart. Hermione was certain she wouldn't be able to get anywhere close to fast enough herself without accidentally dislocating something.

Hermione closed the door behind her and started picking her way toward the garden, watching the two Lovegoods engaged in their practice duel. She had no idea how Charissa and Luna could do this kind of thing. She'd tried learning, a little bit — when it'd become clear just how dangerous the magical world could be sometimes, and just how much negative attention her mother was drawing, Hermione had decided picking up at least a little would just be prudent. But it was just...not her thing. It was too damn fast, for one. Hermione knew without exaggeration that she was proficient with more different charms and such than probably anyone in her year, but that didn't necessarily translate well. When she did magic it was usually very deliberate — exactly the right spell for the precise situation, cast exactly appropriately. And it always took her a couple seconds to think of what the exact right spell was, find the memory of learning it somewhere in her head. She simply couldn't come up with the right spells with the speed a duel required, there were just too many. Not to mention she wasn't really comfortable running around like that, or that her aim wasn't nearly precise enough, or that she had trouble flinging off curses at people she didn't actually _want_ to hurt, making practice almost impossible...

Maybe she should take Liana up on that offer to teach her a bit. She still wasn't anywhere close to entirely comfortable with the vampire, but that would take care of at least the last problem. Especially since she wasn't sure she could seriously harm Liana even if she tried.

Hermione was just leaving the garden, stepping through a wooden gate sloppily painted in a riot of clashing colours by a much younger Luna, when the fight going on some metres away abruptly halted. She glanced up at the sudden stillness to see both Lovegoods had stopped, turned to stare at her, silently blinking. It was somewhat unnerving, the way they were both steadily staring, Hermione had to force herself still.

Finally, they twitched into motion again, Luna turning one of those absent smiles of hers on her aunt. 'It looks like this lesson was going to be shorter than we thought.'

One of Castalia's eyebrows twitched upward, a crooked smirk thick with teasing amusement splitting her face. The expression was uncannily familiar — if it weren't for the paleness of her skin, so profound it almost looked sickly, the blonde of her hair, the brilliant blue of her eyes, Hermione would almost think she was looking at Alice Longbottom. Well, that wasn't too unexpected, she guessed they did know each other. And yes, she did mean that in every possible sense. 'How cruel, Cunyngen.' Hermione blinked at the nickname; it must be normal, though, because Luna didn't react at all. 'Abandoning poor little me for a younger, prettier woman. I see how it is.'

Given the situation, Hermione thought she could be forgiven for blushing. Just a little, so little neither of them probably noticed, but still.

Luna didn't address the implication directly, though. She just kept smiling, voice still smooth and drifting, 'You're neither poor nor little.'

'No, I suppose you're right about that.' Castalia was tall for a pureblooded witch, now that Hermione thought about it. She'd noticed British purebloods were generally pretty short, but both the Lovegood adults were tall enough they'd be considered so even in the muggle world. Hermione was rather tall herself, actually, she'd been the tallest or nearly the tallest in her class every year back in primary school, even including the boys and after she'd skipped a year once, but Castalia had a few inches on her, enough she seemed almost strangely tall for a woman. Luna was still tiny though, probably even smaller than Charissa — Hermione could only assume she'd gotten it from her mother. The height difference between the two Lovegood women was actually almost comical, Castalia could probably rest her elbow on Luna's head.

And, well. Lovegood may be a Common House, but they're not one of the poorer ones — no matter how ridiculous the Quibbler was, it did bring in a fair amount of money, not to mention the publishing house they also owned. Not the largest in the country, but still. Castalia herself, well, professional duelling wasn't exactly the best way to get filthy rich, but there _was_ money in it. Considering she currently had the fourth-highest career rating among active duellists in Britain, she certainly wasn't having any financial difficulties, to say the least.

But anyway, Hermione had let herself get distracted again. She did that far too often. She was pretty sure, when she hadn't been paying attention, Castalia had said something about how she _supposed_ she could leave the two of them to themselves, she'd somehow have to survive the disappointment. With a last quick exchange with Luna — scheduling their next lesson, but they seemed to be skipping every other word, it was confusing — and a last significant glance at Hermione, Castalia disappeared with a faint crack of apparation.

Hermione blinked at the space that had once held the older woman. She was pretty sure apparating off like that, even when keyed into the wards so it was possible, was considered frightfully rude. But oh well, wasn't her family.

Luna didn't seem to care, at least, just turning an easy smile on her, the same smile she might see any day in the library or running into each other at the Ravenclaw table for breakfast. And then they were drifting back to the house, Luna asking if she was really sure she wanted normal tea. _Again_. Unlike most of her friends, Luna hadn't actually managed to trick her into trying what she didn't consider drink for boring people — but then, Hermione was rather certain she'd never tried. All the same, Luna still made the joke, every bloody time. Hermione wasn't sure why, but honestly she'd given up on the prospect of ever entirely understanding Luna Lovegood.

In a few moments, they were sitting at the kitchen table, cups of tea in hand. Just to be sure, Hermione gave her cup a discrete sniff, but yes, it was just tea. After a second of silence, in that high, breathy, absent-sounding voice of hers, Luna said, 'So, was there a particular reason you came by? Not to say I would rather you didn't come over, but you're Hermione. If a Hermione stopped having reasons for doing things she wouldn't be much of a Hermione at all.'

She would like to think that was a weird thing to say, but Luna used to be a _lot_ worse than that. Far as she could tell, this was just what she sounded like when she wasn't being obscure on purpose. 'Well, yes, I do have reasons.' Hermione reached into her jeans, pulled out a heavy parchment envelope — it only fit because she'd recently gone through her entire wardrobe and cast expanding charms on her pockets, or with a few quick charms added pockets to clothes that hadn't any. She'd had quite enough of not being able to carry things on her person conveniently. 'OWL scores came in. Since you were helping me with the studying, I thought you might like to see how it went.'

Luna picked up the envelope from where Hermione dropped it, shooting one of those thin Luna-smirks over the parchment. 'And of course it's not about showing off at all. You're not like that. Very humble, Hermione Granger.'

She just shrugged. Maybe it was a little bit. She couldn't help it, though. She watched Luna read over the parchment, phantom text flickering before Hermione's own eyes.

 _Office of þe Deputy Director_

 _National Examination Auþority_

 _Department of Education_

 _Wizengamot Administration Services_

 _Emma Karen Williams Granger, MsRt HH Cherwell_

 _It has been entered into our records today, þe Seventeenþ of July, þat your daughter, Hermione Jeanne Granger (MsRg HH Cherwell), did undertake þe Ordinary Wizarding Levels for Summer of 1996, on site at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._

 _A copy of þe publicly-available version of þe results has been enclosed for your appraisal. More detailed results are available to you or oðer guardian/s legally recognised by þe Office of Family Law upon request._

 _Aaron Valentine, HH Riversend_

 _Office of Deputy Director Griselda Marchbanks_

 _National Examination Auþority_

That had been the first page, a lot of that pretentious mage rubbish she mostly ignored. She'd barely read it the first time. It was the second page that had been interesting, she remembered that too.

 _ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL RESULTS_

 _Summer, 1996_

 _Hermione Jeanne Granger (_ _MsRg HH Cherwell)_

 _ **Ancient Runes**_ _:_ _O*_

 _Comprehension and Composition:_ _O_

 _Elementary Enchanting:_ _O*_

 _Elementary Warding:_ _O_

 _(Notes: Professor Eberhardt recommends special commendation for þe student's unique solution to Marten's Dilemma.)_

 _ **Ariþmancy:**_ _O_

 _Basic Principles:_ _O_

 _Magical Analysis:_ _E_

 _ **Astronomy**_ _:_ _O_

 _ **British Language and Literature**_ _:_ _O_

 _Classical Brīþwn Language:_ _O_

 _Modern Brīþwn Language:_ _O_

 _Poetic Classics: E_

 _Literary Canon:_ _O_

 _ **Charms**_ _:_ _O_

 _Þeory:_ _O_

 _Applied — Active Spells:_ _O_

 _Applied — Passive Spells:_ _E_

 _ **Defence Against þe Dark Arts**_ _:_ _E_

 _Þeory:_ _O_

 _Applied — Essential Skills:_ _E_

 _Applied — Personal Defence:_ _P*_

 _(Notes: On Professor Tofty's recommendation, due to þe exceptional þeoretical knowledge of þe student, þe Personal Defence subscore is considered an A in þe average.)_

 _ **Ðīɬ Anðwnn Studies**_ _:_ _O_

 _Culture and History:_ _O_

 _Physiology and Magics:_ _E_

 _ **Herbology:**_ _E_

 _ **History**_ _:_ _O_

 _Modern History:_ _O_

 _Pre-Statute Britain:_ _O_

 _ **Potions**_ _:_ _O_

 _Þeory:_ _O_

 _Applied — Directed:_ _O_

 _Applied — Free:_ _O_

 _ **Transfiguration**_ _:_ _O_

 _Þeory:_ _O_

 _Applied — Free Transmutation:_ _O_

 _Applied — Essential Charmwork:_ _E_

 _Applied — Elementary Conjuration:_ _O_

 _ **Total passed / Exams attempted:**_ _11/11_

Hermione knew, rationally, her results were good. _Very_ good. She'd even gotten a special commendation on her Runes test, which only happened very rarely. But she couldn't help feeling slightly embarrassed all the same. That E on her passive charmwork glared at her every time she looked at her results. And the Defence exam... Reading between the lines somewhat, her practical results had been terrible enough that, even with what had probably been a perfect score on the theory, she _should_ have gotten an A. There would be no other reason it would have been suggested one of her practical scores be considered higher than it actually was for the average — the E must have been a low enough of an E, the P a terrible enough of a P, they outweighed her O on the theory. If this Tofty hadn't decided to take pity on her, she wouldn't even be allowed to take Defence next year.

Though she was seriously considering if she should even bother.

So, that was a bit embarrassing. Especially since she was showing this to _Luna_ , who could probably take the Defence OWL right now, and get solid Os. But the rest of her exam was impressive enough she decided it was worth it.

Especially when the smile at Luna's lips twisted wider, and she let out one of those soft humming noises of hers. 'You did better than me in Runes.'

Hermione blinked. Yes, Luna had started Arithmancy and Runes a year early, so had been the youngest person taking the exams. But, somehow, Hermione hadn't thought she would have actually done better on either test. Luna had been learning magic theory before she could cast a single spell, had learned runes alongside the bloody alphabet. In fact, she had so completely not expected doing better than her Hermione couldn't help saying, 'Really?' an obvious tone of disbelief on her voice.

With a soft smile, Luna pulled out her wand. A silent summoning charm later — Hermione recognised it from the wand movement — and a page of heavy parchment was fluttering down from one of the upper levels to land on the table. Luna pushed it to her with the tip of her wand.

 _ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL RESULTS_

 _Luna Nicole Lachesis (_ _HH Lovegood)_

 _ **Ancient Runes**_ _:_ _O_

 _Comprehension and Composition:_ _O_

 _Elementary Enchanting:_ _O_

 _Elementary Warding:_ _E_

 _ **Ariþmancy:**_ _O_

 _Basic Principles:_ _O_

 _Magical Analysis:_ _O_

 _ **Total passed / Exams attempted:**_ _2/2_

For a long moment, Hermione could only stare at the page. She wasn't surprised Luna had beaten her in Arithmancy — Luna drew up far more elegant solutions in analysis problems than she did all the time, that was expected. But...she'd only gotten an E in warding? How had _that_ happened? The Runes test had been _easy!_

She jerked back to reality when Luna started talking. 'I'm not really surprised, though. Runes is your best subject.' She said this in that way she had of saying something so simply, so flatly, it seemed as though she were saying something obviously, universally true. Sky is blue, what comes up must come down. Hermione is good at runic magic.

Hermione could only stare at her, seconds dragging by. Luna calmly sipped at her tea, those overlarge, shimmering eyes steadily meeting her own. She still found Luna's eye colour a bit...odd. Hermione was pretty sure human eyes weren't supposed to look like that, like someone had somehow implanted discs of polished silver around the pupil. It always struck her as faintly unnatural. Not _bad_ , of course not, just slightly strange.

Luna was strange in general, so she guessed that was only appropriate.

It took Hermione a long moment to find her voice again. When she finally did, she could only say, 'It is? I, er, didn't really notice...'

'Oh, it wasn't at first. You used to struggle with it. I think it was starting in about, maybe, spring last year that you started getting better. You've been consistently the best in our class this year, surpassed me a while ago.'

...Hermione somehow hadn't noticed she'd gotten so good at Runes. She didn't know what might have caused that. She'd just been...thinking of it like...

She'd been standing in her pretty dress, which still made her somewhat uncomfortable just thinking about it, in the packed Entrance Hall. Her arm in Charissa's, which also made her somewhat uncomfortable, but she was trying not to think about that too hard, how many other people around who could see them full well. She'd been talking to a couple people, including Greengrass — not the Greengrass in her year, but her mother, the Lady Greengrass. And, feeling desperately uncomfortable all the while...

' _My point is, Miss Granger, that runic magic has innumerable applications in virtually every field, so I have to wonder why you're dismissing it.'_

 _Did I sound dismissive? I didn't mean to sound dismissive. It's not that I don't see it has its uses, of course it does, it just doesn't quite click to me. It's too...fuzzy? Indirect? Muddy? I don't know, I just have trouble wrapping my head around it sometimes._

 _'That's a problem a lot of more rationally-minded people can have. You're muggleborn, right?'_

 _It really bothers me how people keep asking me that._

 _'So you know about Legos.'_

 _You're a pureblood noblewoman, how the hell do_ _ **you**_ _know about Legos?_

 _'See, a problem a lot of people have is thinking of runes like Legos — discrete spell-pieces you can stick together to build an effect. But it doesn't work like that. Think of runic magic instead like words, in any language. Much like a spoken word, a rune stands in for a concept, but arbitrarily so. ... Don't think of a script as an arithmantically-proper description of what you want the enchanted object to do, but rather spoken instructions telling it what to do. It doesn't have to be precise, but neither does any spoken language, and you use those just fine.'_

She remembered Lady Greengrass, the same Ailbhe Greengrass who had written the book on runic magic Luna had recommended way back in second year, had give that bit of advice of hers. And maybe Hermione had actually taken the advice. She hadn't consciously decided to, hadn't been thinking of what Greengrass had been saying when she'd been doing her Runes work. But it must have sunk in a bit.

Because runic magic was a bit indirect and muddy, but that was because it didn't necessarily run on strict, arithmantic logic. It instead ran on _verbal_ logic. Which only made sense, when she thought about it — all runic magic was, after all, spells formed out of words and nothing else. That was the trick to it.

Apparently, she'd ran with Greengrass's advice, and in the process became ridiculously good at Runes, to the point it was clearly her best subject. She hadn't gotten special remarks on any of her other exams, after all. And she hadn't even noticed it happening.

She could only think of one thing to say to that. 'Huh.'

And Luna was just smiling at her some more, nodding and humming to herself. 'We have some books you might be interested in, if you want. Mummy was a tricky enchantress, and we still have all of her books. I'm sure Daddy wouldn't mind if you borrowed them. It's not like we're using them.'

Hermione ignored the subtle sadness at the edge of Luna's voice. She ignored the almost unnervingly childish terms Luna invariably used for her parents. (Was she fifteen or five? Honestly...) Instead she just stared back at Luna, not entirely sure how to feel about the offer. There was personal sentiment involved, of course — Hermione was well aware neither Luna nor her father had taken Pandora's death at all well, and neither of them had fully dealt with their grief. She was rather surprised Luna would make the offer at all for that reason alone.

But some of it, though, was something implied in the offer, something she wouldn't have picked up at all if she hadn't been around pureblood mages so much. Pandora had been born a Blanchet. The Blanchets were a cadet branch of the Cæcinés, an old Aquitanian noble family — a _very_ old family, the name was originally _Etruscan_. Some of those books quite likely had been brought with her from the Blanchets, originally gifted by the Cæcinés. Luna's _mother's_ mother had been born an Ollivander. It was not outside the realm of possibility that the Lovegoods' library included knowledge inherited from two of the oldest, most famously-skilled noble families in Western Europe. Among Pandora's personal collection of enchanting texts it was even _more_ likely.

In short, Luna had just offered access to what were quite possibly family secrets. Legally-protected family secrets, stealing them could technically be industrial espionage. And she'd done it casually, hardly thinking about it, as though it were no big deal at all.

Just because it was Hermione, and Hermione might find it interesting.

True, Charissa had done something very similar by letting her into the Potter library, both at her parents' house and the old manor her grandmother lived in alone. But she'd been very sternly told she couldn't remove anything from the library. She could read things there, but she couldn't take anything with her.

Luna had clearly said she could just walk off with whatever she wanted. Which was a completely different sort of thing.

But, no matter how completely blindsided Hermione was by what she knew any pureblood in the country would consider a ridiculous depth of generosity, she couldn't say she was surprised. Not really. Luna just did things like that. Because she was Hermione, and Luna liked her, so she didn't even think twice about it. It wasn't worth even considering, to her.

Which, when it came down to it, only made the _other_ thing she wanted to talk about today far easier to bring up. In fact, she felt oddly motivated to do it right this fucking second. Probably for reasons her mother would mercilessly tease her for if she told her about it. 'Luna?'

Luna didn't actually say any words to that. She just raised a pale eyebrow slightly, gave a soft little, 'Hmm?'

But just because it was easier didn't mean it was _easy_. Hermione hesitated, eyes flicking away from Luna's impossible silver, teeth worrying at her lip for a second. But even with the nerves buzzing in her head and heat clawing at her chest, just for a second. 'Are you seeing anyone?' She knew the answer to that, of course, but it wasn't really _about_ the question. Luna was more than clever enough to get that.

At least, Hermione hoped so, because she wasn't sure she would be able to be any more direct about it without stumbling and blushing like a bloody idiot.

She thought, just maybe, there had been a flash of surprise crossing Luna's face. Barely noticeable, thin enough Hermione wasn't certain it had been there. She _could_ have imagined the slight parting of her lips, she could have imagined the widening of her eyes, the greater than usual shimmer on their surface. But, so quickly she couldn't be certain it was there, it had been gone already. And Luna was giving her one of her patently blank faces, as harmless and as expressive as the fluffiest of cumulus clouds. Her voice warm and soft and perfectly calm, she said, 'Of course I am.'

Hermione blinked. And she blinked again, the meaning of the words slowly penetrating. Honestly, she was more confused than anything else. 'But... No, you're not!'

Still as blank and soft as anything, Luna said, 'Yes, I am.'

'I...' Could Hermione have missed that? No, she didn't think so. She spent far too much time around Luna for her to be dating someone without Hermione knowing. Not to mention Luna had an often embarrassing habit of saying _exactly_ what she was thinking — that happened to be how Hermione knew Luna was interested in women in the first place, she didn't filter her, er, complimentary thoughts _at all_ — so she would certainly have known. Hermione started feeling she might be beginning to be annoyed. If Luna wasn't interested she could just say so... 'Well, who, then?'

'You, obviously.' During Hermione's stunned silence, Luna just stared at her, eyes blinking, slowly.

And, Hermione noticed after a few seconds, _pointedly_. 'Luna!' she said, the name buried in an exasperated sigh. 'I didn't mean _literally!'_

'I didn't either. Well...' Luna's head tipped to the side a bit, hair slipping over her shoulders, her eyes going slightly out of focus as she gazed at the ceiling. 'I guess I did mean it literally. But meanings aren't exclusive. One thing said can be multiple things meant.'

'So...' Hermione clenched her hand about the edge of the table, forcing herself to focus. To not let her incessant thoughts run away from her — which wasn't easy, she'd been dealing with her brain doing that kind of thing longer than she could remember, and she never seemed to get any better at handling it. 'You meant it literally _and_ figuratively.'

'Yes,' Luna said, eyes coming back down with a smooth, easy nod.

She should have expected Luna would make this as difficult as humanly possible. She shouldn't have been surprised, really. 'I'm still not sure I understand. Is this you saying yes? in the weirdest and most confusing way you could possibly think of?'

This time she definitely noticed it. A slight curl at the side of her lip, a dance of laughter in her eyes, hints of a smirk Luna didn't quite let show itself. 'Not at all. If I were trying to be weird and confusing I could do much better than this.'

Well. Hermione had to give her that one. She wasn't sure she could imagine such a thing, but she _was_ certain Luna could. Hermione found herself feeling rather annoyed, but she was really trying not to be. If only because, well, that _had_ been what she'd been going for. Luna was being a pain about it, but Hermione had already known Luna could be a pain sometimes, and she'd wanted to ask her out anyway, so she clearly didn't mind too much. Though, at the moment, she was kind of wondering if that hadn't been a bit naïve of her. 'Well. Fine. I'll just take this as a yes, then.' Fucking weirdo, honestly...

Now Luna's face really shifted, taking on a faint mien of confusion. 'I'm not sure I understand, though.'

Hermione somehow knew she was going to regret asking. 'Not sure you understand...what?'

'I mean, it was a bit silly, wasn't it? I just think it's a bit odd to ask your girlfriend if she's seeing anyone.'

Temporarily passing over the absurdity of Luna calling _anyone else_ odd, Hermione took a second to parse the implications of that sentence. 'But... But we _weren't_...'

'Weren't we?' Luna blinked at her for a second. Then she removed a hand from her tea cup, snapped her fingers with a light, 'Oh, darn it.'

'Er...'

'I suppose I wasn't making my intentions very clear at all, was I? I have been told so often I need to work on that, but...' Luna raised her shoulders, then let them fall with a breathy, 'Sigh...' Not an actual sigh. The _word_ , spoken. Which just...

Luna... Luna was saying she, she'd thought the two of them had been dating _this whole time?_ But...how does...she...

A tingling sense of _wrongness_ persisted in the back of Hermione's head. She saw again that maybe-maybe-not flash of surprise, the hidden smirk, that _narrated_ sigh. And suddenly she knew.

Hermione tried, very very hard, to not pout. 'You're teasing me.'

And Luna smiled. Warm and brilliant, the sparkle in her eyes just as unnatural as their colour. 'Yes. I'm sorry if it was a bit much, but you get so cute when you have puzzle-face.' The smile vanished, Luna blinked. 'I'm allowed to say you're cute now, right?'

Normally, she might have blushed at that, but she was probably too confused and disoriented at the moment to be properly embarrassed. 'Erm, well, sure, I guess.'

The smile reappeared at full luminosity, Luna humming softly again.

For not even close to the first time she'd gotten this idea in her head, Hermione doubted herself. Sometimes this just seemed like a comically stupid idea. Luna was one of the few people her age who could actually keep up with her intellectually, true, and she was complicated and interesting enough to hold her attention, which she couldn't say about most people she knew, if she were being too honest. It might sound terrible, but she truly believed she would quickly get bored of most girls she'd ever met. There were many things one could say about Luna Lovegood, but none of them were that she was boring. And she was sweet, of course, sometimes even _too_ nice, and...

Well, she wouldn't exactly rate it the _most_ important thing of all things, but there was no denying Luna was pretty. And not just physically. There was an odd, otherworldly, almost absurd sort of adorableness about everything she did. It was definitely an acquired taste, and she realised some people would probably call her crazy for actually finding it all adorable, but there it was.

Crazy. That was it. Maybe the Lovegood madness was contagious. That would explain a lot.

But she just sighed, slumping back in her seat, hugging her tea to herself. 'You're a pain.'

Luna had the decency to not argue the point.

* * *

 _July 26th, 1996_

* * *

Unfortunately, there was no real way to be subtle about coming through the floo.

This was not the first time she had realised the problem this posed. There was no good way to sneak in and out of a person's house. When Holly had been fourteen, and she'd been seeing Bleðyn — a Selwyn, someone her father had _deeply_ disapproved of — they'd on multiple nights tried to slip into each other's homes in the dead of night. It had never gone well. Bleðyn, sly little Slytherin he was, had been much better at sneaking around than she was, but he'd still ended up being caught by Father one night on his way back to the floo.

That hadn't gone well at all — especially after Father had found out he was on his way _back_.

Adults had slightly more options, assuming they could apparate. But even that wasn't necessarily so easy to use. Many mages made their homes in more or less the middle of nowhere, and their anti-apparation wards often extended some distance beyond their walls — there weren't very many she knew where she could apparate outside the wards, still near enough to walk.

It was especially exasperating, because she didn't even necessarily want to _go_ to the home Jamie shared with his children. She just wanted to know if he was _there_. But there was no easy way to know that either! There was no quick and easy way to find out where he was. She'd checked the Potter family manor already — Lady Potter had no clue where her son was, only that he wasn't there. She'd checked with her cousin Devin, but he hadn't been there either.

And now she was checking his home. She'd come through the floo, her teeth grit and shoulders tight with tension, to find the moody red sitting room empty. No one in the kitchen. A climb up the stairs, running into no one, to peek into the library. Nothing. Walking down the hall, warily watching the doors to the childrens' bedrooms — the degree of relief she felt when none of the doors twitched was a little embarrassing — and finally stepping into his. Empty.

Out of curiosity, Holly had slipped over to Jamie's desk. Maybe there would be a letter out, something, anything that could point her toward wherever he was. She was starting to feel a bit dirty by this point. Maybe dirty wasn't the right word. It just seemed simultaneously wrong and a bit pathetic. Wrong that she was snooping about Jamie's home when no one was around — especially since she was about to go through the papers on the desk of a Lord of the Wizengamot. Pathetic that she was apparently so desperate to see him.

But, no, if she was being honest with herself, she wasn't that _desperate_ , exactly. It just... She would rather talk about it now. While it was fresh on her mind. She might be more inclined to leave it rest if she were to delay for too long. She'd previously displayed a terrible tendency to forget about troublesome things if she let them keep too long.

The letter she actually did find on the desk, though, only made her a bit sheepish.

 _Holly—_

 _Are you snooping about my desk? You sly little fox! I suppose þat's what I get for not owling you._

 _I'm to take dinner wið Lord Gaunt today. I know, I know, he's a bloody annoying pain in þe arse, but I have agreed to an alliance of sorts. And his grandson will be my son-in-law one day. Þere's þat._

 _I should return later in þe evening. We can talk about whatever it is I'm sure you wish to discuss þen._

— _Jamie_

Despite herself, the embarrassment she felt at being caught out before she'd even started, she couldn't help feeling a bit amused. Enough she even snorted back a laugh. Jamie bloody Potter. Always more clever than people gave him credit for.

She supposed she could just...stay and wait. It shouldn't be too long. It was already, what, seven? It couldn't be much longer until he was back. So she'd just...

Holly glanced around Jamie's room. The place always struck her as somehow...less than it should be. It was nice enough, she supposed. Somewhat ascetic for a Lord of the Wizengamot, but Jamie was just like that. Simple desk of simple wood, a couple cheap but comfortable chairs. Simple bed, just space enough for two. Carpet and walls in blacks and deep reds, crimson curtains giving the sunlight a ruddy tint. A litany of pictures covering the walls, bits of quidditch paraphernalia here and there. It was nice enough, of course, but it always struck her as too...

Empty. Too many spaces where things ought to be, too many places left stagnant too long.

Holly knew why that was, of course. This had been Lily Black's room as well, for over a decade. Her things were gone, all trace of her. Except the choice of colours, she suspected. But Jamie hadn't yet filled out the empty places. Where Lily had once been was still open, waiting.

Holly had no idea how much of it was because, at some level, Jamie hadn't wanted her gone. Would rather she had stayed. That he didn't take over the room entirely because he'd never quite let go of the hope she would come back. Perhaps not consciously, so deep inside he wasn't quite aware of it himself. But maybe.

She'd rather not think about that, but the thought still niggled at her every time she'd been here. She couldn't help it.

So she wouldn't stay here. With Jamie around, she could more or less ignore it, but it was hopeless on her own. She stopped by the library on her way downstairs to grab a book at random from the enchanting section, and soon found herself set up in the kitchen with a mug of tea. The book was open before her, her eyes solid on the page, but she hardly even took in a word. After what felt like long minutes, her tea half-vanished, she gave up the pretense entirely, and collapsed back into her chair.

She really shouldn't be surprised she couldn't concentrate. She'd hardly been able to manage any focus at all over the last couple days, ever since Jamie had broached the subject of marriage. Seriously, she meant. She still wasn't entirely sure how to feel about the idea.

It wasn't like she hadn't ever thought about it. She'd thought about it a lot, actually. But never with any sense of...of intention, of realism, of this being a thing that would happen in real life that she was honestly considering. It'd just been girlish dreaming, she guessed. It was rather strange to think about now, just how young she had been when she'd first started seeing Jamie — come to think of it, Charissa was actually older than Holly had been in the beginning, which was just weird. She'd had a lot of odd, immature thoughts over the course of their relationship, she knew that.

Perhaps still had, until very recently. Perhaps she hadn't really been thinking about any of this seriously at all until Jamie had raised the idea of them marrying. It'd been a bit of a shock, honestly.

She knew what a lot of people said about her. Had been saying quite a lot, especially since Jamie's marriage to Lily had very publicly imploded. She hadn't been trying to...she didn't know, split them up or whatever. She hadn't any devious plot to supplant Lily as the Lady Potter. She'd just been a stupid teenager when it'd started, she hadn't been thinking anywhere further than Jamie being nice and entertaining and attractive. She'd had idle thoughts here and there over the years, but who could blame her for that, really? She knew she was at least _partially_ responsible for the splintering of their relationship, but it hadn't been at all intentional.

Really, if she were to be asked and answer honestly, she wouldn't have thought she were _capable_ of it. She was _Lily bloody Evans_. Even before the expedition to Magyarland, Lily had been famous. Holly hadn't known her personally, of course, but she couldn't imagine any way she was at all better than Lily. That sounded a bit self-deprecating, but she only meant to say, if _Holly_ were James, she would have stuck with Lily.

If she were Jamie, she probably would have never started seeing herself, in fact. Lily was, well, _Lily_. Not only was she perfect in almost every conceivable way — a bit of a hard personality, Holly guessed, but not so rough as to be overly difficult — but she was also...

How to put it? Well, she'd just say this. Holly was still mildly surprised that, in all the fights Jamie and Lily had had over the years — a not insignificant proportion, she knew, over Holly herself — not one of them had ended with Jamie in Saint Mungo's.

So, this wasn't planned. It wasn't what she'd been hoping for. She suspected her grandfather was under the impression she had been working Jamie this whole time, but practically everyone seemed to assume that. And, if things were simple, if it were _only_ Jamie, the two of them in isolation, there really wouldn't be anything to consider. She loved him, she'd loved him for a good decade now. She really couldn't imagine marrying anyone else, she couldn't think of any personal reason why she shouldn't.

But things weren't so simple. The world wasn't just the two of them.

The things people said about her, they probably shouldn't bother her as much as they did, but she really couldn't help it. And she knew the whispers, the hissing behind her back would only get worse if she actually married him. She knew he was also dealing with a certain blow to his own reputation. He _had_ been considered one of the greatest champions in the Wizengamot of muggleborns and muggles and the less fortunate in general, but a few of his votes, his recent lukewarm approach to House Cherwell, and his very public falling out with perhaps the most widely-adored living muggleborn in all the world was tarnishing that image somewhat.

It didn't help that there was a not insignificant age difference. Sure, with the full breadth of a mage's lifespan taken into account it wasn't all that much, and she had personally met couples separated by greater spans of years. But it was a significant enough of a disparity people saw fit to whisper about it. Which she could understand, she guessed. She'd done the math. Holly's birthday was closer to Charissa's than Jamie's, she was more of an age with her maybe-future-stepdaughter than her maybe-future-husband. Not by much, only a couple months. But still.

Honestly, she thought it a bit weirder that Holly's great-aunt Elizabeth was Jamie's half-sister. But Jamie barely ever spoke to Elizabeth, so she guessed that didn't really matter.

Those problems were mostly manageable though. There were a few more small issues. Holly had met Jamie's mother on several occasions. While they'd never gotten along that great, their recent interactions had been more strained than before — Holly got the impression the formidable older woman disapproved, but not enough to be openly confrontational, just a bit cold and snitty. She had a few cousins who were less than pleased — Elizabeth in particular, she'd tried to convince Holly several times to go find someone better, who deserved her, which Holly always thought was odd, considering Jamie _was_ her brother — but she was sure they would get over it before too long.

Maybe not Elizabeth. She _really_ didn't like Jamie, for reasons she'd never actually explained. Which was a bit sad, Elizabeth _was_ Holly's favourite aunt, but...

No, there were three _big_ problems, three problems that were still keeping her from making up her mind about the whole thing.

Their names were Charissa, Linden, and Perry.

The floo flared, breaking the stillness of the empty house so sharply Holly almost dropped her by now lukewarm tea. As she fumbled with the book she had entirely failed to read, flashes of green light pulsed again and again and again, an increasing number of voices populating the living room. Dumping the remains of her tea into the sink, leaving the cup to drip, she went to the door, slowly and quietly, hoping to get a glimpse of who all it was before making herself known. It sounded like too many people to just be Jamie and Charissa.

It sounded so, and she hadn't been wrong. Jamie and Charissa _were_ there, but they were joined by the other two Potter children, along with Alexis Gaunt. Holly winced, but collected herself before anyone saw.

She was spotted before too long — by Gaunt, but she'd already felt a brief touch against her occlumency, soft as the lightest brush of silk, so Charissa had to have known she was here — and was quickly dragged into the conversation by a grinning Jamie. He was the only person who was pleased to see her, she could tell. The Gaunt girl simply gave her a glance almost aggressive in the intensity of the dismissiveness it showed, but even that was milder than the antipathy Jamie's children had for her. But she was well used to the idea by now.

Linden, noticing she was there, had only given her a faint look of disgust. Disgust that grew quite a bit when Jamie greeted her with a kiss, but that was normal. Disgust seemed to be Linden's usual reaction to her. When he wasn't pranking or teasing her anyway. She had no idea exactly why, and honestly it didn't matter. Linden was a bloody menace, setting little traps all over the place, jinxing her things when she wasn't looking. Apparently, Jamie had had a habit of doing much the same to people he didn't like when he'd been Linden's age, familiar enough to him Holly thought he didn't quite take his son's behaviour as seriously as he should. It was annoying, but in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't _that_ bad. Linden clearly didn't like her, but it was a childish, petty sort of dislike, one she was pretty sure would exhaust itself in time. She could deal with that.

Perry simply hated her. It was clear as day in the set of his jaw the moment he laid eyes on her, the narrowing of his sharp eyes, the expression rather unnervingly reminiscent of the one Lily often wore the instant before saying something sure to be insulting. Not too surprising he would make Holly think of Lily, she guessed — of the three, it was Perry who looked the most like their mother, the same red hair (if slightly wilder), the same brilliant green eyes, carrying the same incandescent intensity. The way Perry glared at her seriously unnerved her. A child should not have eyes like that. All too hard, all too sharp, bearing down on her with a focus so heavy she could feel it as a physical weight, feeling hatefully cold and furiously hot all at once. It wasn't natural.

Rather like his mother, in fact.

Perry had barely... No, Holly wasn't certain Perry had _ever_ spoken a word to her. Not since learning about her relationship with his father, anyway — some of her younger cousins had been friends with him before they'd started at Hogwarts, she'd run into him visiting before. He just glared, the hatred clear enough on his gaze he didn't actually need to speak, then fled her presence at the earliest opportunity.

Linden might get over his dislike of her in time, but she felt far too confident Perry never would. Which she did understand, honestly. In his head, it was her fault his mother was gone. Perhaps not intentionally, perhaps not her fault alone, but she was responsible enough for him. The way that boy was about all things Lily, no, she didn't think he'd ever get over it. Perry would always hate her, she didn't expect that to ever change.

Which rather made the prospect of marrying Jamie complicated, didn't it? Linden was a pain, would certainly make things difficult in the short term but _Perry_... She wasn't sure it was...wise. She suspected that would be more trouble than she really wanted to deal with. She didn't know if she'd ever be able to relax with this kind of tension between them, she feared it would quickly become unbearable.

And Charissa...

Well, Charissa was just bloody terrifying.

Not that it was always obvious. She was surprisingly good at hiding it. There was part of it she _couldn't_ hide, or perhaps simply didn't. That subtle sense of magic on the air, a faint taste of grass and lightning, a visceral shiver of power that seemed to follow Charissa wherever she went. It was rather weak at the moment, so mild it was barely noticeable — true sorcerers, when they let loose, were simply not possible to ignore — but it was enough to know. A constant, niggling thought at the back of her mind, that this girl, this fifteen-year-old girl, was already overwhelmingly powerful, could squish her like a distasteful insect should she ever choose to.

Not that she thought Charissa would. Not really. But the thought was always there all the same.

She hadn't needed to deal with it much today, luckily. Despite the comparative earliness of the hour, the consensus was reached very quickly they would all retreat to separate bedrooms. Well, partially separate — she and Jamie stayed together, of course, and so did Charissa and Gaunt. Apparently Gaunt stayed over frequently, which Holly thought was rather strange, but she didn't think it her place to comment.

And the rest of the night was fine, mostly. She still felt slightly odd in this house, but she ignored it well enough. Jamie was very distracting. Of course, later in the night, Jamie being, er, distracting was a bit uncomfortable. Holly couldn't seem to forget his children (plus the Gaunt girl) were just on the other side of those walls, no matter how hard she tried.

She really hoped she would get used to that eventually. She hadn't decided if she was actually going to do it yet, but if she did it would wear on her really fast, being all too aware of their presence. All too aware none of them liked her, and were certainly aware of exactly what she and their father were doing in here — no one could say Jamie's children were unintelligent, and they were old enough by now they should know — aware of it and quite likely not pleased about it. It was just awkward.

She'd never been great at dealing with persistent awkwardness, or really most forms of social tension. Just a Hufflepuff thing, she guessed. She always wanted to fix it, and she had no bloody clue how. She had no idea how to get Jamie's children to not hate her so much. So it was just...uncomfortable.

When it came time to actually sleep, deep in the dead of night, Holly quickly found she was having trouble. She was a bit thirsty, and being a bit thirsty was distracting, she couldn't rest enough to have any hope of drifting off. She lay there for a while, maybe a half hour or so, before she finally surrendered. It simply wasn't happening. Which meant she would have to get out of bed, and go all the way down to the kitchen.

Jamie unfortunately didn't keep any house elves here — Lily had protested, she'd heard third-hand, and Jamie had just never gotten around to changing that sort of thing since she'd left. She could call one of the Fawley elves...theoretically, maybe. It was possible the house was warded against the intrusion of elves not of the family — most homes used by Noble Houses were — but since no Potter elves actually stayed here, it was possible the wards had lapsed. She could call someone and find out...but it was possible the wards, if they were there, could hurt them. Almost certainly not badly, they'd be fine after a couple minutes, but she'd really rather avoid that if at all possible.

She half-considered calling one of the ones she didn't like so much, but she'd feel guilty about that in the end. Not to mention Sandy had a habit of coming to her even when she'd called one of the others. If it was Sandy who got hurt, she'd _really_ feel guilty about that.

So, as slowly and gently as possible, she extricated herself from Jamie's arms. A very faint light at the tip of her wand, she tracked down her dressing gown. The situation was already tense with Jamie's children, running into them in the middle of the night and completely naked would _not_ help things. They should be in bed by now, but...

She slipped out of Jamie's bedroom, carefully clicking the door closed behind her. The snap of the catch was like a bell ringing in the heavy stillness of the moonless night, she couldn't help a guilty wince. She slipped along the hallway, down the stairs, avoiding the spot on the third from the bottom that always creaked. She didn't bother turning the kitchen lights on, just made for the sink, quick conjured a glass and filled it from the tap.

She'd been a couple gulps into it when the lights clicked on abruptly, the searing yellowness stabbing into her eyes, making her flinch badly enough she slopped water over herself. There was obviously someone else in the room now, but she didn't turn around, not yet — she could tell who it was without having to look by the tingling weight of wild magic nipping at her skin.

'Very graceful, Hollis.' The words were delivered flatly, tone completely empty, without the bite of sarcasm one would expect. But then, Charissa was just like that. Holly heard the soft padding of her footsteps cross behind her — Holly tried not to tense too obviously, it was just uncomfortable, made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end — then some rummaging in a cabinet a bit around the kitchen. Followed shortly by a heavy clang.

Holly blinked, looked Charissa's way. Ah, she'd taken out a teapot, that simple metal one Holly had noticed before, so cheap and so old there were slight signs of corrosion in a few places. Charissa glanced over her shoulder, in Holly's general direction, a hand coming around to point toward her. Holly felt a stinging rush of magic rising into the air, couldn't help cringing away.

The handle on the tap turned, a stream of water splashing against the basin of the sink, merrily singing with what Holly thought was _entirely_ the wrong mood for the moment. After a second, the stream of water bent, curling to the side instead of falling straight down, stretching across the kitchen, wavering and weaving and glittering in the light, then slipping through the top of the pot on the stove to settle at its heart. A few moments passed, both of them silently watching the stream of water move — Charissa with an intimidating sort of casualness, as though wandless magic this ridiculously precise were a simple feat she did every day, Holly with unabashed fascination — until the tap turned itself off again, the tiny airborne river gradually shrinking as the last of the water slunk its way across the room, then vanishing entirely.

Okay, that had just been impressive. And rather pretty.

Turning away from her, Charissa had the stove burning with a tap of a finger. Then she turned to lean her hip against the counter, sideways, arms crossed under her chest, eyes on her tea-to-be, settling in to wait. And ignoring Holly completely.

Holly didn't think this was the _most_ uncomfortable she had ever been, but this moment was definitely rather high on the list. She had just been, well, er, shagging this girl's father. And she was pretty sure Charissa had just been shagging her future husband's sister.

Holly hadn't been certain before — the implication had been there, when she'd been told the Gaunt girl spent the night rather often, but Holly hadn't been sure if that had been intentional, or if she'd just been reading too much into it. It had been somewhat suspicious, the way they'd been holding themselves around each other. More on Gaunt's end than Charissa's, honestly, she'd practically attached herself to Charissa the moment they'd been out of the floo. But sometimes girl friends were just like that, it could be hard to tell sometimes.

But she was rather certain now. Holly had intentionally made sure she would have a dressing gown at Jamie's house appropriately modest for maybe running into his children — it wasn't indecent at all, she'd worn summer robes that were more revealing than this. Charissa obviously hadn't taken the same precaution. She was wearing a nightdress, red, a red so dark it nearly seemed black where shadows crossed it, only the barest hint of sleeves in a few drifting scraps of thin cloth trailing over her shoulders, the hem just barely over the bottom of her hips, far too high up her thighs to be considered entirely appropriate to be wearing in public. Of course, not the only way she was currently a bit less than decent — the cloth was smooth and light and thin, enough it wasn't _quite_ fully opaque. Holly could get more than enough detail through it to see this thin little nightdress was the _only_ thing Charissa was wearing. Which was making her a bit uncomfortable all by itself.

The point was, it was not the sort of thing that was worn with someone one _wasn't_ having sex with. Especially since she had the feeling the thing was Gaunt's — somehow, she couldn't imagine Charissa actually owned something like that.

She had to wonder if Charissa's betrothed knew about this. She had heard the Gaunt twins were bonded, which meant he certainly would, but... Well, the situation was strange, she wasn't sure what to think. She was less sure she wanted to think about it, at all.

After a few awkward moments filled with a few awkward glances, Holly trying to get the last of her water past her suddenly uncooperative throat, Charissa turned to give her a look. Exasperated, if Holly had to put a word to it, impatient. 'Was there something you wanted, Fawley?'

Yes, she was definitely annoyed with her. Charissa never called her Holly, always her proper name — always with a subtle sense of displeasure on her voice, as though she'd rather not be saying Holly's name at all. She did use her family name sometimes, but usually only when Holly was doing something Charissa would rather she weren't. 'Nothing, I just...' Holly hesitated, frantically trying to come up with something to say Charissa couldn't possibly take offence at. Which was bloody impossible, far as she could tell, when Holly was the one talking. She felt a touch against her shielded mind, fingers that weren't fingers lightly trailing against skin that wasn't skin, but did her absolute best to ignore it. 'Ah, isn't it a bit late for tea?'

She knew immediately she had said the wrong thing. Charissa tensed, only slightly, enough she barely noticed. More obvious was the narrowed glare hooding her eyes, the weight of magic on the air turning cold, and sharp, dangerous. Holly tried not to cringe, but she was certain she failed. 'Aren't you a little young to be my mother?'

Ah. Yes. She supposed what she'd said _could_ be interpreted as maternal nagging. She hadn't intended it to be, not even a little bit, but Charissa always did seem oversensitive to any implication of Holly telling her to do anything. She should have been more careful. 'I didn't mean it like that, I was just, er, just asking.'

'Mm-hmm.' Charissa didn't sound like she believed her, her hummed response filled with a clear sense of mockery. But she relaxed all the same, the deadly threat on the air dissipating as she turned back to the stove. Holly let out a breath of relief, trying to not be too obvious about it. 'Not that it's any of your business, but it's not even for me.'

She blinked. 'Gaunt?'

Charissa nodded, a trace of a smirk touching her lips. 'Yes. She always asks for tea when her throat is bothering her. I suppose I was a bit harder on her than usual.'

It was obvious what Charissa meant — even without the sharp smirk, the hint of sadistic amusement on her voice, just the words would have been enough. Holly couldn't help the shiver crawling up her spine. She really hadn't needed to know that. At least Charissa could cast one hell of a silencing, she guessed. Forcing as much casual calm onto her voice as she could summon, Holly said, 'There are other things you could get. That wouldn't keep her up all night, I mean.'

Charissa gave a careless shrug. 'I can just use a sleeping charm if it's bothering her.'

Oh. Well. If Gaunt was comfortable with Charissa forcing magic on her like that, she guessed so. Come to think of it, Charissa was probably using magic on Gaunt quite a lot, which she _didn't want to think about_ , that way lay only badness.

Holly figured that was enough. She'd gotten her water, and had to deal with more than a single conversation's worth of discomfort, time to go back upstairs. She poured the last bit of water out of her cup, vanished it again, and started for the door, a brief goodnight shot over her shoulder as she walked off.

Just as she was crossing the threshold, 'Hollis.' She froze at Charissa's voice. Not just because she had spoken, not just because it had been her name, but because there was... _something_ there. _Something_ on Charissa's voice, Holly didn't know what, something that made her feel like she had to listen to it. Heavy and cold and deadly, not wise to tempt that without a very good reason. She turned to look back into the kitchen again, finding Charissa.

Standing exactly where she had been, arms still crossed, still staring at the teapot now gently steaming. Her voice low and calm, smooth and cold, yet with a subtle threat at the edges that made Holly shiver, Charissa said, 'I hurt her, you know. She wants me to, of course, for reasons I personally can't fathom, and I do. I've hurt her rather a lot. Everything from stinging charms, to black hexes, to simply hitting her. I'll have her restrained by some binding spell or another, and I bruise her, and I cut her, and I hurt her enough she _screams_. That's what the tea is for, you see, she was screaming too much. She enjoys it, which I really don't understand. I wouldn't, if I were her. I suppose that's why she's the one who's hurt, and I'm the one who does the hurting.

'The point is, Hollis Fawley...' Charissa turned to look up at her then, her green eyes as still and lifeless as emeralds set into a skull. '...I _like_ Alex. I do this to her, and she's one of the few people I actually _like_. So you should perhaps be wondering, if I found one day that I had to hurt _you_...' Charissa shrugged, breaking her gaze to watch the bloody teapot again. 'Well, I wouldn't be bringing you tea afterwards.'

Holly struggled to find her voice for long seconds, fighting the quivering of her own throat. Which was stupid, and silly, she should _stop_ , but her own fucking body just didn't seem to be cooperating. Finally, she wrestled her own muscles into submission, but her voice was still embarrassingly shaky. 'You don't have to threaten me, Charissa. I already know what you are.'

Charissa didn't look back up, but she could still see the upward tick of an eyebrow from this angle. 'Do you?'

'Yes, I think I do.' She might not know a lot about this sort of thing, but she could pay attention. She could listen to what other people said, watch what they did, read between the lines. Sometimes she didn't even have to read between the lines, some people were blunt enough to come out and say exactly what they were thinking.

It was altogether possible that, in a decade or two, Charissa would be Britain's next Dark Lady. The first one of any significance they'd had since Cromwell (and wasn't that an ominous reference).

Many of the families among the Light were still in denial about it. She knew Jamie was. But the darker families, they watched, they saw what Charissa was, what she could easily become. And they were already preparing. It was subtle, not so overt as explicitly declaring allegiance or enmity. Not yet. But it was there. It was there in how they muttered to each other, there in the look in their eyes when they talked about a few certain subjects. It was there in the words people used to refer to Charissa, how they spoke of her, when they spoke of her.

The Dark and the Grey Houses were already maneuvering. Sides were being drawn, the line still indistinct, but growing slowly clearer every day, as their future Lady's opinions and inclinations gradually became known. Holly could see it happening, so slow, so subtle, even if she was certain Charissa didn't.

Not that she could be blamed for that. Normally, none of these people would spare near this much thought for a girl not quite yet sixteen. And, far as she could tell, Charissa thought of herself as exactly that — a girl of not quite yet sixteen, her concerns appropriate to her age. But Charissa wasn't an ordinary girl. Holly knew little about this sort of thing, and even she could tell. There was something...unnerving about it. How powerful Charissa was, she meant. It simply wasn't natural. No girl of her age should be able to do half the things she did, and that with casual ease, as though they were no great effort at all. And the subtle aura of power she always carried around her, it reminded Holly of Amelia Bones, of Lady Longbottom, of Lord Gaunt, of bloody _Dumbledore_ , of sorcerers established for decades. Powerful they may be, but the development of their abilities had been perfectly natural — some people were simply more powerful than others.

The same couldn't be said of Charissa. It had come seemingly out of nowhere, the power of a sorceress appearing in a child of fourteen. She'd heard Light families say things about it only being expected, she was her mother's daughter, that kind of thing. But she'd noticed the Dark didn't say the same. Holly didn't know much about this sort of thing, but they did. They knew something more was going on here. They knew there was something unnatural about it. They knew Charissa was something... _else_.

So they whispered their whispers, and they glanced their glances, and they waited. Some hoping for, others dreading, the day Charissa realised what could be hers if she only asked for it, and a Dark Lady once again made herself known to the people of Britain.

Charissa seemed to consider Holly for a second, then dismissed her with a slight shrug. Obviously not believing her, not truly believing Holly knew well enough to be wary of Charissa without the need of any explicit threats. But that was good enough for Holly. She didn't really need Charissa to believe her. She could keep making her threats, if she felt it so necessary. As long as she didn't feel the need to follow through on any of them, Holly didn't see how it made any difference.

Her knees were annoyingly unsteady as she tried to climb the stairs.

In a moment, she was in Jamie's room again. After leaving her dressing gown draped over the foot of the bed, where she'd be able to find it easily should she need it again, she had hardly sat on the edge of the bed when she heard Jamie shifting behind her. 'Holly?' His voice was thick and unsteady with sleep. Not surprising — he'd been under already when Holly had left. 'Something wrong?'

'Nothing.' She lifted the covers, only enough to slide herself back under them. She sighed at the warmth, a tense chill she hadn't even noticed already easing. In a moment, she'd again found the most comfortable place for her head on Jamie's shoulder, her knee locking about his without consciously deciding to. A faint smile twitched at her lips, raised by Jamie's fingers sleepily slipping through her hair.

For a long moment, she simply lay there. Listening to Jamie breathing, fingers tracing his ribs, thinking.

'Jamie?'

'Hmm?' He sounded even sleepier than he had a moment ago. Must have been drifting off again.

'You really want to marry me?'

Thin and shaky with sleep though it was, Jamie's smirk was still audible on his voice. 'Well, can't say as I'd protest too strongly.'

Holly rolled her eyes. Silly man. 'You have to ask Charissa's permission first.'

She could almost feel the sleepiness vanish, boiled away by an increasing anger, his body tensing under her. 'I don't need _my daughter's permission_ to—'

'Jamie, just...' Holly bit her lip, shaking her head against Jamie's chest. 'Just do it. Please.'

He was silent for long seconds, fingers frozen in her hair. She could almost feel his brain working, turning it all in his head, trying to get it to make sense. Annoyingly, he came to exactly the right conclusion. His fury only a slight heat on his low voice, he whispered, 'What did she say to you?'

If she were being honest, it wasn't so much what she'd said. It was the power about her, far too much for a girl, for a human, unnatural and terrifying. It was the way she'd looked at her, her eyes cold and empty, as though there were nothing inside, as though _Holly_ were nothing, as though Charissa could use that power to murder her with a twitch of her finger and not even blink. 'Nothing, Jamie. She didn't, that's not it.'

'You know I don't believe you.'

She couldn't help chuckling to herself a little. Of course he didn't believe her. She'd always been a shite liar. 'It doesn't matter, Jamie. Just, just ask her. Please.'

Jamie was silent again, again for long seconds. After a while, she didn't know how long, she could feel the angry tension leave him, his fingers again moving in her hair, slow and gentle. 'Was that a yes, then?'

'No. That was me giving you an ultimatum, not consenting.'

'An ultimatum is usually the last thing before something. That's what _ultimate_ means, see. And the only thing I can think it's _before_ is...'

Holly punched him in the shoulder.

* * *

MsRt HH Cherwell _— Mistress Regent, the Honourable House of Cherwell_

MsRg HH Cherwell _— Mistress Regnant, the Honourable House of Cherwell_

Etruscan _— Is this common knowledge? Eh. The Etruscans were an ancient civilisation, the immediate precursors to the Romans. In fact, Rome first became a significant settlement as an Etruscan city. (One possible etymology of the name of the city itself is even Etruscan.) Etruria was eventually absorbed into the Republic, and Roman culture eclipsed Etruscan, until the non-Indo–European language they spoke died in the first century C.E., and the Etruscan people were fully assimilated. Some Etruscan words, especially dealing with government and the military, made their way into Latin, and several important Roman families had originally Etruscan names. Including Caecina, which in headcanon Aquitania eventually became Cæciné._

* * *

 _So, yes, this took forever, I know. Having an actual job has been fucking with my ability to write way more than I anticipated. Especially since the hours are really irregular, and at weird fucking times, which then fucks up my sleep, making writing even harder. I will keep trying, but I'll make no promises about when the next chapter will be out._

 _Until next time,  
~Wings_


	40. Hiatus announcement

So. I have the opposite of a Thanksgiving gift for all of you. You're allowed to hate it, but unfortunately you can't return it. Lost the receipt, you see.

I'm sure it hasn't escaped anyone's notice that I haven't updated in...well, a while. Two months now? Whatever. Part of this is because I've been busy with work and a variety of other distractions. It is sort of hard to keep up my ridiculous update schedule — seriously, I was regularly posting chapters above 10k every week, the hell — when, by the time I get home, I'm not really in the mood to do much of anything, much less write. That has accounted for part of the ridiculous delay.

The rest of it, well... I'm afraid I just don't _want_ to write these stories anymore. They're no longer interesting to me, not enough to hold my attention. It doesn't help that my style and opinions about canon and such have changed significantly over the course of writing these — I find myself stuck with decisions I made over a year ago that I no longer find convincing or appropriate, but that it's far too late to change. The last few months, whenever I've sat down to write either fic, I've had far greater trouble than usual getting into the proper voice. After weeks of attempts to force it, I only made it about halfway through the next chapter of _The Long Game_ , and what I have written I don't think is very good, either. I simply don't think I can write these anymore. The proper frame of mind is just too far away.

So, this is me announcing that both _The Long Game_ and _To Reach Without_ are going on indefinite hiatus. I won't rule out the possibility I might get back to them eventually, but I consider such an eventuality unlikely in the extreme.

On the off-chance there's anyone out there interested in continuing/finishing the stories without me, PM me and I'll walk through all my devious plans.

This is not to say I'll be disappearing. Over the last few days, I have done a fair amount of work on _Unexpected Complications_ , and it is very possible I could start posting that and/or one of the winners from the poll — _Her Mother's Love_ and _A Crash Course in Enchanting and Interdimensional Mechanics_ — in the near future. No solid promises on that, though. They should all be shorter than _TLG_ and _TRW_ , so it is more likely I'll be able to finish them. But any fanfic I end up writing will probably be slowed down both by employment and work on original fiction, which I've also started semi-recently. So, there's that.

Thanks for tolerating my nonsense for so long, and sorry about not being able to finish any of it.  
~Wings


End file.
